Spiritual Milk Or Solid Food?

November 18th, 2025
by Lance Waldie

Hebrews 5:12-14 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. 13 For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. 14 But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.

When a person converts to Jesus Christ, they believe—trust—in Him for their salvation. They are therefore rescued from the domain of darkness and transferred to the kingdom of God’s beloved Son (Col. 1:13). Having been rescued and guaranteed eternal life in Jesus Christ, the unbeliever-turned-believer is a new creation. Paul says, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come” (2 Cor. 5:17). Nothing about the believer’s former life should be evident in one who professes to know Christ. But this is why the author of Hebrews penned his epistle, for his audience claimed to know Christ, yet they were lazy and immature—“dull of hearing.” What a horrible commentary for a Christian!

Although Christians should grow in their knowledge of doctrinal truth, not all Christians are called to be teachers: “Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment” (James 3:1). In fact, though the elders/overseers in the church must be “able to teach” (1 Tim. 3:2), not even church officers like deacons, who are certainly to be mature in their faith (1 Tim. 3:6), are expected to be teachers. Thus, the author of Hebrews did not expect everyone to be teachers in the church, but he did expect that after so much time had passed since his audience’s conversion to Christ, they could teach doctrine if called upon to do so. This is a principle for the Church in all ages. Although a select few should be teachers in the local church, all who have been Christians for more than a few years should be able to teach.

The chastisement by the Hebrews author in v. 12 is that although “by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God.” Referring to these “elementary truths,” commentator Leon Morris says that this actually means something like, “the ABC’s of the beginning of the words of God.” Having neglected the basic truths of the gospel, the main, plain things had become for them complicated and difficult. The audience as a whole reminds us of the servant who was given a talent of money by his lord in Matthew 25:15. Being dull, he hid it in the ground and did nothing with it (v. 18). When his lord later summoned him, he returned the talent without any increase. He was thus called “wicked” and “lazy” (v. 26) by his lord and cast into outer darkness (v. 30).

The author explains his quandary in v. 13 by telling the audience that he could not even begin to expect them to understand the “word of righteousness” because they were mere infants in their understanding. They were infants accustomed to milk, unable to eat solid food as mature believers are supposed to partake. He was therefore restricted in his teachings to them because of their dullness.

Verse 14 reveals how true believers are characterized: “But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.” The mature thus eat solid food, feeding their redeemed souls with the Word of God in order to be nourished. They “practice” this, habitually training their “senses” (Gr. aisthētērion), they mental acuities, by feeding on the Scriptures. Over time, this gives them the ability to “discern” (Gr. diakrisis) good and evil—the cognitive process whereby two or more stimuli are marked as distinctive. In other words, they learn to distinguish truth from error. Sadly, too many today feed only on milk and know nothing about solid food. How? When given solid food they spit it out and cry like babies.

Food For Thought
If you’re a professed Christian, what evidence is there to convict you of such if being a Christian were a crime? Truth is, you’ve been given much. As a result, much will be required from you. Matthew 13:12, 14-15 says, “Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him… In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: ‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.’ ”