Each human being started with the basics, we lived on milk at first, followed several months later with some semi-solid foods. Eventually, we take our first bites of solid food.
Can you imagine how odd it would be if a capable seventeen-year-old still needed milk or pureed peas because he hadn't matured? That's where some of the Jews who received the Book of Hebrews were living spiritually. They started with the milk of the Word, but they never grew up; they never got to the meat of mature spiritual truths.
The writer said, "For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk instead of solid food" ( Heb. 5:12).
Like adults surviving on baby food, believers who don't grow up in the faith have problems. The church term we use for encouraging spiritual maturity is "discipleship". It involves becoming more like Jesus, more of a follower.
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