Daily Meditations

Hebrews 6:1 continued Faith in God We now come to the second of the  “elementary truths”  which is  “faith in God.”  It seems very simple and, at first sight, needs little explanation! It’s only when we stop and reflect on this phrase that we begin to realise how profound it is.  There are many, many levels of faith in God. They start with the basic belief that God, Yahweh, exists. There is a Being who transcends mankind, the earth we live in and the heavenly realms above, He is the all-seeing, all-hearing, all-knowing One who we call the Lord God. That simple statement is, for many, the beginning and the end of faith, they never make it beyond the stage of accepting the existence of a superior deity who rules over all. Having made that step of faith we now have to recognise our dependency and how we might please and show respect to such a great Being. We also must dismiss all inferior gods and the worship of created things rather than the Creator. That, in effe...

Hebrews 6:1 Repentance from acts that lead to death This chapter of Hebrews begins by setting out what the writer regarded as being “elementary teachings!” In other words, these are the doctrines and truths that should be taught to young believers and were regarded as the milk of the Word, as opposed to the meat that should be part of the diet of those who are mature in the faith. Let’s just list these elementary truths before we look at them in more depth: - 1.       Repentance from acts that lead to death 2.       Faith in God 3.       Instruction about cleansing rites 4.       The laying on of hands 5.       The resurrection of the dead 6.       Eternal judgement Each of these is regarded as elementary but we have to ask, are these the primary teaching modules used by most churches for new converts? Are these subjects that we are all fa...

Hebrews 5:14 Solid food for the mature I’ve often asked parents, and myself, did we ever teach our children to do wrong things or to sin? Did we teach them to lie, disobey, show a temper and manipulate situations for their own purposes? Of course not, those things are born within us all, we are human and as David writes, “ Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” Psalm 51:5. One of the major roles of a parent is to teach their children about righteousness. Because so many parents have not been taught themselves it’s not surprising that children do not have a clue. One of the benefits about such teaching is that it allows us to distinguish good from evil, this takes many years with our natural children let alone the spiritual children! The Apostle Paul takes this subject one step further when he writes to the Corinthians,  “Brothers and sister, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly – mere infan...

  Hebrews 5:13 Teaching infants about righteousness How many of us realise that there are numerous levels of Biblical teaching and understanding? For instance, someone who has recently been born again and has just discovered the wonder of a relationship with Jesus might well sum up their faith in a few, expressive sentences that make complete sense to another person who has never heard the message before. That is why new converts are the best evangelists. However, if we have been on the road with the Lord for 50 years, and during that time we have studied the Word and preached on it many, many times, when we try to share the Gospel in simple terms it becomes a very difficult task! What to leave in? What to leave out? What are the essentials? Does this doctrine need a fuller explanation?   It is not arrogant to find it difficult to express something that one was simple but now is not, because we’ve had a lifetime of exploring its complexities! Perhaps that is why pastors a...

Hebrews 5:12 Milk, not solid food For a Pastor, there is nothing more frustrating than to have members in your congregation who have never progressed, who stand still in their faith and show no inclination to move on! Some boast of a great experience in the past, of an encounter with God that changed their lives and use that moment as the major credential for their faith, but it seems impossible to help them to understand that every day can be an experience with the Lord! There are others, of course, who hear the teaching, listen to the pleadings of the Holy Spirit but somehow it passes them by, they do not make progress on the journey of faith. Others are hung up on particular doctrines or their allegiance to a way of thinking and cannot expand their horizons to embrace new truth or fresh encouragement from the Word of God.  It is impossible to argue with the writer of Hebrews who expresses similar frustrations, especially when he can identify those who, by now, should themselves ...

  Hebrews 5:11 You no longer try to understand There is a frustration voiced here that will be familiar to most Bible scholars and teachers.  Students of the Word of God who delve into its secrets for the blessing of others, constantly find themselves “banging their heads against a brick wall!” because there is so much truth, so much to be revealed. Every hour spent in digging deeper into the layers of revelation in the Word, only serves to uncover yet more mysteries and deeper strata of understanding and knowledge. This Book is infinite in its complexity and like the stars in the sky, its Creator just has more and more to reveal to us, we know we will never grasp it all in a single lifetime! Many of us look back and wonder how the attention we gave to Scripture in our younger years could have been so flippant and fleeting, now we can easily spend whole days uncovering its secrets. But the task is in some ways, thankless because we do not have the time or the ability to p...