I. Spiritual immaturity results in dullness to learning God's truth.
-The spiritually immature:
a. Are negligent of hearing.
-have become = ginomai = to be to become; perfect tense
-dull = nothros = sluggish, dull, negligent, lazy
b. Should have grown to be capable of teaching others.
-by this time = on account of the time
-ought = opheilo = owe, obligated, bound, must
c. Are still in need of spiritual milk.
-have come = ginomai; perfect tense
i. They still need to be taught the elementary principles.
-elementary principles = stoicheia = basic element, basic principles, elements of the alphabet
ii. they are inexperienced in the word of righteousness.
-accustomed to = apeiros = unskilled, inexperienced in, unacquainted with
II. Spiritual maturity produces the ability to assimilate and apply God's truth.
-mature = teleios = complete, mature, perfect
-The spiritually mature:
a. Are capable of receiving spiritual meat.
b. Have a character trained to discern.
-practice = hexis = habit; New Linguistic and Exegetical Key "It refers to a habit of body or mind indicating not the process but the result; the condition, produced by past exercise is now habitual, the disposition of character."
-senses = aistheterion = faculty, sense organ
-trained = gumnazo = to exercise, to train
-discern = diakrisis = distinguishing, deciding, making a judgment between two things
-New Linguistic and Exegetical Key "The goal of training is distinguishing good and evil. Because the readers had been believers for a time, they should have known that to return to Judaism was a bad choice, they would not be able to go on to maturity."
III. Move on to spiritual maturity in God's truth.
a. Surrendering to the active influence of God.
-press on = phero = carry, bear, present tense, passive verb.
-Phil. 2:12-13
b. Moving beyond the foundation principles.
1) Repentance and faith.
2) Washings and laying on of hands
3) Resurrection and eternal judgment
c. Being dependent upon the work of God is us.
No comments:
Post a Comment