Common Sense Reborn

Hebrews, Part 5

¹²You have been believers so long now that you ought to be teaching others. Instead, you need someone to teach you again the basic things about God’s word. You are like babies who need milk and cannot eat solid food. ¹³For someone who lives on milk is still an infant and doesn’t know how to do what is right. ¹⁴Solid food is for those who are mature, who through training have the skill to recognize the difference between right and wrong. (Hebrews 5:12-14)

Wednesday night, I wrapped up my first run of running a neighborhood Bible Study. We had our strongest level of participation in months. We celebrated the one neighbor who had completed his first reading of the entire Bible from cover-to-cover, and I allowed him to open the meeting by speaking of what that accomplishment meant to him. He stated that it felt like an enormous accomplishment (which it is) and that it has just increased his appetite to learn more, read more, study more. His next book that he and I will be reading over the next month will be the Book of Enoch and I am excited to read through that and share it with you all on here. I still need to find time to read through Revelation and I will have reread the entire Bible for the fifth time in my life. For our content here, I want to finish up highlighting more of the Book of Hebrews, then I believe I will share some new insight gleamed from reading the Apostle John’s Revelation before switching gears and sharing the Book of Enoch. Who knows what the rest of the year will bring. The plan for the neighborhood men’s Bible Study is to find some professional Bible Studies to do deeper dives into specific books, which will yield even more material to share with y’all on this platform. But for today, let’s look at the verses above from the close of the fifth chapter of Hebrews.

The author writes to the Jewish Christians, who are first generation Christians and tells them that they “have been believers so long now” that they should no longer need the basic teachings of what Christianity means. They should know the difference between right and wrong and how to live righteous lives. The author wrote this around 70 AD. The author was telling first generation Christians they had plenty of time to learn the basic message of Jesus Christ. Jesus had been crucified and risen for roughly thirty-seven years, many first-generation Christians may have even witnessed this or know someone who did. The letters from Paul and other Apostles were circulating the world. The leaders of the early Christian churches may have been some of the original Disciples. Yet, despite all this, the author had to point out that these early Christians were still infants in their knowledge of Jesus.

Now, 1,955 years after the author wrote this to first generation Christians, I am screaming this out to anyone reading these words. You have had plenty, and I mean plenty, of time to learn the basic foundations of the teachings of Jesus Christ. Unless you are a young person in their early twenties, there is no excuse. There is no legitimate excuse if you have never devoted your time to read and study the Holy Bible, the written Word of our Living God. However, I also understand how easy it is to allow the distractions of this world to keep you in your infancy of maturing in the Spirit. I was trapped in the world until God broke through and gave me the opportunity to read the entire Bible for the first time. That truly, truly changed my life. It allowed me to see what was of greatest importance to both God and His Son, Jesus Christ. For God, it was devotion to just Him, to push away all the other gods (idols) of the world, to focus and follow the Creator only and what the Creator cares about the most: taking care of foreigners, the poor, the widow, the orphan, the most marginalized in society. Jesus echoed those teachings and preached that the most important commandments to follow were to Love God above all else, and the second, which Jesus stated was just as important as the first, was to Love ALL People as you love yourself. Love the Palestinian. Love the Israeli. Love the transgender. Love the Republican. Love the Democrat. Love the criminal on the cross. Love the drug addict. Love the homeless individual begging on the corner of the park. Love everyone and find a way to help them come to a true understanding of their worth in God’s eyes, and how they can learn and grow to be good disciples.

But instead, the mighty “Christian” nation has elected a president who has done nothing but wrong since returning to office. It has been one embarrassing act after another every single day since January 20, so much so, that I have not even bothered to keep up. The recent fall-out from “Signalgate” just shows the level of incompetence and immaturity we have allowed to be in control of this great country. But I do love these fools, they are painting a clear picture of hypocrisy for the world to see. They are showing what it means to be a mature Christian, those who are actively standing up and speaking out against these atrocities, and the baby-Christians still sucking on sippy cups, who look at what is unfolding in America and think it is “right”. Time to grow up and speak out over the hypocrisy unfolding in America. Stand up and have the courage to fight for what is right in the eyes of Christ.