Although by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to reteach you the basic principles of God’s word. You need milk, not solid food!For although by this time you should be teachers, you again need to have someone teach you the rudiments of the first principles of the revelations of God. You have come to need milk, and not solid food.For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat.For when by reason of the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need again that some one teach you the rudiments of the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of solid food.
3 sermons cite this verse
… it seems to be owing to the fact that you've become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food. Now if I were Jared Compton, if I were smart as Jared, I might have said to that lady in Germany, there are a lot of things that a second grader can understand in the Bible. But Jared's words were, it's weird if you want to stay in the second grade the rest of your life. And that really landed on me like, that's weird. And there are just thousands of Christians who make no effort to get out of the second grade? The Bible says in 2 Peter 3.18, grow in the knowledge and the grace of the Lord Jesus. It's a command. How are you doing? Do you know him better today than a month ago? or 10 years ago, or are you stuck? Just stuck. I'm still in second grade. It's just a zillion churches that don't try to help people get out of second grade. …
So, certainly that means the law, but it means more than that. It means the revelation of God's spoken and then in stone written down word, Hebrews 5.12. You need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. And in the third instance, besides Romans, is in 1 Peter 4.11. Whoever speaks, let him do so as one who speaks the oracles of God. So, these four passages, and at least in three of them, it's likely that the referent are to the written down Scriptures. There's a famous scholarly article over a hundred years ago written by the great theologian B.B. Warfield. You can get it in the book Inspiration and Authority. It includes it there. he has a famous article called The Oracles of God, where he talks about this very phrase, and he traces it in Greco-Roman literature and Jewish literature, and he concludes that this phrase refers to the Old Testament Scriptures. He says in Romans 3.2, it certainly refers to that. …
And all of that stuff becomes defined in hearing the simplicity, the purity, the power of the gospel every day. Hebrews chapter 5, verse 12. How many of you have your Bibles? Let me see them. Say this with me. I love my Bible. Oh, I do. I love my Bible. All right. verse 12. 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 and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. This tells us two things. The word of God comes to us in several forms, or the word carries several different roles or assignments. One is the milk of the word. The milk of the word is that which comforts and encourages. The meat of the word, he identifies here as the word of righteousness. The meat of the word is that which provokes and brings about change. It's the transformational word of God. It provokes us to recognize what God is saying needs to happen, and it brings us into a place where we yield to that which God has purposed. So there's the milk, that which comforts, that which gives encouragement, and then there's the meat, that which confronts, exhorts, and provokes us to change. But the third area that is going to be especially important for this morning is the area of promise. There are over 7,700 promises of God in the scriptures, in the word …