Children have no discernment when it comes to balance in their diet. They love candy, soda, snacks—anything sweet—basically anything that’s bad for them. If they were allowed, that’s all they’d eat. Give them a full bag of candy from church or a night of trick-or-treating, and they’ll gladly work through it in one sitting. That’s why parents step in. Not to ruin the fun, but to protect their health. Because a steady diet of sugar is harmful.
And we understand that instinctively. We expect that kind of behavior from kids—because they’re kids. They don’t yet have the maturity or discernment to choose what’s best for them. That’s why God gives them parents: to guide and help them grow.
But if an adult lived the same way, surviving on soda, candy, and junk food, we wouldn’t laugh. We’d be concerned. That’s not normal. That’s not healthy. That’s a sign that something is wrong. And spiritually, the same is true.
God fully expects a new believer to begin with the milk of the Word. There’s nothing wrong with that. But He never intends for them to stay there. At some point, there ought to be growth. At some point, there ought to be discernment. At some point, we should move beyond what’s easy and start feeding on what will actually make us strong.
That’s the dilemma we find in Hebrews chapter 5.
The writer is building toward something deep—something rich about Christ as our High Priest. He’s laying the groundwork, explaining how Jesus was divinely appointed, how He fulfills a priesthood greater than Aaron’s, how He follows the order of Melchizedek. It’s powerful truth. The kind of truth that strengthens a believer.
And then… he stops.
Right in the middle of it, he pauses and says:
“Of whom we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing.” (Hebrews 5:11)
The Problem of Dullness
This passage isn’t targeting intellectual ability—it’s exposing a lack of growth and spiritual laziness. It’s not about what people don’t know; it’s about what they haven’t done with what they already know. And that’s where the concern lies today. There are many Christians who have sat under solid preaching, gone through discipleship, read their Bibles, and yet never moved forward. They’ve accumulated knowledge without applying it, been exposed to truth without exercising it, and learned what’s right while growing comfortable doing nothing with it.
The issue isn’t ignorance; it’s dullness. It’s a heart that has grown sluggish toward the things of God. That’s how a young person can grow up in a strong, Bible-believing church, get saved, serve for a season, and then walk away as soon as they gain independence. That’s how someone can sit faithfully in church week after week and still refuse to fully commit, to grow, to serve, or to take their walk with Christ seriously. At some point, the issue stops being ignorance and starts being neglect.
We’ve created a culture of comfortable Christianity, where we prefer what’s easy and familiar. We want short, convenient messages, encouragement without conviction, truth without response. Spiritually, we’ve become picky eaters, satisfied with milk and uninterested in anything deeper. Yet Scripture makes it clear in 1 Peter 2:2 that milk is only the beginning; milk is meant to produce growth, not replace it. Just like learning an instrument starts with the basics but is meant to lead to real music, the Christian life begins with foundational truth but is meant to mature into something deeper. The tragedy is that many believers have been saved for years—even decades—and are still in the same place spiritually, not because they haven’t heard the Word, but because they’ve refused to let it change them.
The Pattern of Dependence
Hebrews 5:12–13 exposes the next step after dullness—a pattern of dependence. These believers are being rebuked because by this point, they should have been teachers, yet they still needed someone to teach them the very basics again. They kept getting stuck, never progressing, never moving forward. Instead of growing into maturity, they remained in a state where they could only handle milk, described as unskillful in the word of righteousness, spiritual babes who never developed. And if we’re honest, that pattern still shows up today.
There are Christians who should be leading, discipling, and serving in greater ways, but they aren’t; not because they lack opportunity, but because they’ve never grown enough to handle it. They’ve become dependent on others to explain truth, to guide their thinking, to sustain their walk with God. Paul addressed the same issue in 1 Corinthians 3:1–2, where he said he wanted to give them meat—deeper, weightier truth—but couldn’t, because they weren’t able to bear it. They were still functioning like spiritual infants, dependent instead of developing.
There’s nothing wrong with being discipled (every believer needs that), but there is something wrong with staying there. At some point, growth requires that the training wheels come off. You have to learn what you believe for yourself, open God’s Word personally, and develop your own convictions. Yes, there may be some stumbles along the way, but that’s part of growth. A faith that always leans on someone else will never stand on its own. And that’s the call here: to move beyond a pattern of dependence and begin growing into spiritual maturity by taking ownership of your walk with God.
The Path to Discernment
Hebrews 5:14 shows us what maturity actually looks like: “strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.” That phrase “by reason of use” is the key. Spiritual maturity doesn’t happen automatically; it’s developed through consistent practice. Discernment isn’t something you wake up with one day—it’s something you grow into. The more you use Scripture, the more you apply it, the sharper your spiritual judgment becomes. That’s what discernment is: the ability to recognize what is right and what is wrong, to navigate life with spiritual clarity. And many believers struggle here—not because they’ve never heard truth, but because they’ve never trained themselves to use it. When someone says, “I don’t know why I keep falling into the same sin,” often the issue is a lack of discernment. Their spiritual senses haven’t been exercised enough to recognize and resist it.
That’s why hearing truth alone isn’t enough. You can sit through sermons, read your Bible daily, and still remain stuck if there’s no application. Growth happens when truth moves from your ears into your life. Knowledge without application always leads to spiritual stagnation. If you want to move to the next level in your walk with God, you have to start practicing what you’re learning—living it out, not just taking it in.
And that kind of growth takes effort. The word “exercise” in this verse implies discipline, repetition, intentionality. Just like any skill, it has to be developed over time. Think about it this way—no one becomes good at basketball overnight. It takes hours of practice, repetition, and effort. Shots taken again and again, movements refined over time. The same is true spiritually. You don’t drift into maturity... you train into it. Growth doesn’t happen by accident; it happens on purpose. And if we want to grow, we must be intentional with our walk with God. Taking what we hear, applying it consistently, and allowing the Word of God to shape us, correct us, and transform us. That’s the path to discernment, and that’s how real spiritual growth begins.
The Pursuit of Development
Hebrews 6:1 gives a clear call: “let us go on unto perfection.” That doesn’t mean sinless perfection, it means spiritual progress. It means moving forward, refusing to stay where we started, and actively pursuing growth in our walk with Christ. Scripture supports this in 2 Peter 3:18. We are commanded to grow in grace and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ. So if there’s no growth, there's a problem. And more often than not, it traces back to the same issue Hebrews exposes: spiritual dullness. The good news is that growth isn't difficult to achieve, it’s practical, and it’s attainable if we’re willing to pursue it.
Growth begins with desire. 1 Peter 2:2 reminds us that newborn believers desire the milk of the Word. There’s a hunger, an excitement, a genuine eagerness to know what God says. Think back to when you were first saved, your desire was real. But somewhere along the way, that hunger can fade if we’re not careful. The issue isn’t that we’ve stopped desiring altogether, it’s that we’ve redirected our desire toward lesser things. We can spend hours on entertainment without hesitation, yet struggle to give focused time to God’s Word. Growth will never happen without a renewed desire for what actually nourishes us.
But desire alone isn’t enough. We must also digest the Word. Joshua 1:8 speaks of meditating on Scripture day and night. That’s where truth begins to flourish. It’s one thing to read your Bible; it’s another thing to actually think about it, meditate on it, and carry it with you throughout the day. Many Christians aren’t spiritually starving because they aren’t reading, they’re starving because they aren’t digesting. The Word passes through their mind but never settles in their heart. Real growth begins when we slow down, engage, and allow Scripture to shape our thinking.
From there, we have to do the Word. James 1:22 makes it plain, but be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only. You can desire and digest truth all day long, but if it never leads to action, it won’t change you. This is where many believers stall out. They hear sermons, agree with truth, even feel convicted, yet walk away unchanged. Hebrews was written to confront that exact issue. God’s Word is meant to move us, to correct us, to push us into obedience. And when we act on it, that’s when real transformation happens.
Finally, growth multiplies when we disciple others. 2 Timothy 2:2 shows the pattern—what you’ve learned, pass it on. One of the fastest ways to grow is to teach someone else, because it forces you to truly understand what you believe. It shifts your mindset from simply receiving truth to actively investing in others. And that’s a shift many churches desperately need. There’s no shortage of consumers—people asking, “What can I get?” But there’s a real need for contributors—people asking, “How can I help someone else grow?” God didn’t just call us to mature personally; He called us to be part of someone else’s growth as well.
When we begin to desire the Word, digest the Word, do the Word, and disciple others, something changes. Growth becomes visible. Maturity begins to develop. And instead of staying stuck, we start moving forward—exactly as God intended.
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