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So often in Scripture it is too easy to remove ourselves from the condemnation of the teaching. If you read through the Gospels and only ever see the Pharisees as the 'villains' you could never possibly identify with, you may not be carrying the most open and honest posture into your reading.
Often Scripture hits hard like this because we need it. It's easy to fall into the natural grooves of this world- well-worn paths that seem socially right and familiar, but God always seems to be bumping us out of these ruts in order to set us on more righteous and fruitful paths.
Hebrews 5:11-14 is one of those passages for me, specifically in regards to our Sunday worship gatherings. There is so much good in our Sunday gatherings, but it does feel at times that we've harbored some unhealthy ruts and rhythms in our worship programming. For example, how many in your congregation would you consider to be 'teachers' or capable of teaching the Word in a serious manner?
Hopefully, it's many, but training up teachers and doers of the Word doesn't seem to be the priority. In fact, our Sunday worship rhythms seem too closely aligned with the ethos of the pre-Reformation Church, where under-educated parishioners relied heavily on the practice and interpretation set forth by the trained few priests and ministers. The main difference, and to our credit today, is we encourage and train our people to read the Scriptures for themselves. Where we're falling short, though, is in encouraging and providing opportunities for Christians to put the Scripture's teachings into regular practice. Instead of forging out into the world together and modeling the Sunday messages, we come right back to the pews to hear the next message without fully digesting or putting to practice the first.
If we're not careful, a routine Sunday sermon every week can become a very well established earthly rut for our parishioners. One that keeps them sipping down milk each week, but not giving them enough spiritual energy and practice to put it to miraculous use in the slice of the world God's given them. Our typical answer to this, unfortunately, is usually more education- bigger, better, more theologically dense milk (usually in the form of a class, retreat speaker, or book study). But if we read the author of Hebrews here carefully, information intake isn't the problem, it's practice. It's taking the cosmic principals handed down through Scripture and putting them to practice together in our lives.
So take a moment with God today to consider whether you're getting the well-rounded Spiritual nourishment you should be. Are you active in forging Godly paths in your life, or are there some worldly ruts you (and/or your church) have fallen into?
And for your own gathering, what was it that helped bring you to active spiritual maturity? What can you do to help others around you avoid falling into seemingly harmless ruts, such as 'sermon milking' or 'study hopping' without fully growing up into the cosmically empowered Christians God is calling them to be?
David tried Saul’s armor on before heading out, and it fit so poorly that he immediately took it off. While the armor appeared sturdy, expensive, and promising for victory, it only hindered and distracted David from the battle at hand. It drew his attention to himself, rather than God.