Hebrews: Better - Confronting the Problem of Spiritual Immaturity - Hebrews 5:11-6:3

Richard Philips, in his book on Hebrews describes how people feel when a preacher starts to get a bit more personal than they would prefer. When he speaks in general terms, he is, of course preaching – and that’s fine... but when he starts tackling real sin and stuff going on in their lives – that is not preaching but meddling. The writer to the Hebrews here in chapters 5 and 6 is definitely not just preaching, he’s meddling. The text from 5:11-6:3 is the start of one of the most severe warnings in the Bible. And it deliberately breaks into a section of Hebrews that’s started to consider the theme of Jesus as the Great High priest from the end of chapter 4/start of chapter 5. What’s the reason for the meddling? The editor of the ESV puts it at the head of this section: Warning against Apostasy. Apostacy is when someone who once seemed to be a Christian believer later decides to totally reject Christ and move away from sound gospel truth and stops going to church.