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| PentecostalTheology.com
BELIEVERS NEED SPIRITUAL MEAT TO GROW –
THE WORD OF RIGHTEOUSNESS – Ray E Horton
It isn’t just false prophets that lead people astray, but it is also weak teaching. Such teaching never gets beyond the basics. It also doesn’t encourage deep relationships with the Lord and openness to His Living Word so that people can hear the Lord and discern for themselves. Instead, they never mature and are susceptible to a focus on superficial and peripheral doctrines.
What is spiritual meat?
What is the “meat” that the “unskilled” babes can’t handle. It’s “the word of righteousness”
Believers need spiritual meat to grow! What is spiritual meat? Some would say it is “deeper” teachings. Others would say it’s their pet doctrines. Still others would say it is elementary or foundational teachings. But the Bible tells us otherwise!
“Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment” (Hebrews 6:1-2).
These foundational principles are the “milk” of the Word. Once grounded in these we need to “go on to perfection/maturity.”
“Everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food/strong meat belongs to those who are mature...” (Hebrews 5:13-14). What is the “meat” that the “unskilled” babes can’t handle. It’s “the word of righteousness.”
Focus on side doctrines not central to the core Gospel can leave people vulnerable to every wind of doctrine. But also, God’s people need to go beyond milk, and having a firm foundation, go on to the meat, “the word of righteousness,” clearly knowing who they are in Christ.
Knowing who we are in Christ
“God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21). Developing the maturity of knowing who we are in Christ is how we avoid the false gospel of legalism and come to understand the grace and goodness of God that motivates Christlikeness.
