Life's Inanities and Ironies

In the closing verses of Hebrews 5, the Holy Spirit rebuked the sluggish believers for remaining on spiritual milk when they should have been feasting on solid food. The very next paragraph launches the remedy: **Hebrews 6:1-3** (ESV): > “Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits.” The call is urgent and forward-looking. The writer does not say, “Stay where you are and feel better about it.” He says, **“Let us go on.”** Maturity is not automatic; it is a deliberate, Spirit-empowered advance into the deeper truths of Christ. The Elementary Foundation (What We Leave Behind) The six “elementary doctrines” listed are not bad—they are the ABCs of the faith: 1. Repentance from dead works   2. Faith toward God ...

 “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” — Matthew 13:31–32 (ESV) We live in an age obsessed with size, metrics, and visibility. Mega-churches boast attendance numbers in the tens of thousands. Influencers measure success by followers, likes, and viral clips. Meanwhile, the little country church with cracked pews and thirty faithful souls on a Sunday morning is dismissed as irrelevant, dying, or “not doing enough for the kingdom.” Jesus begs to differ . Three times — in Matthew, Mark, and Luke — the Lord tells the same parable. The Holy Spirit thought it important enough to record it thrice. This is not a cute illustration about “having big faith.” This is a divine prophecy about how God’s kingdom actually advances: through what the world counts ...