The Immature Church

Hebrews 6 is a passage that causes me to make a sober evaluation of the church in our country. In verses 1-2, the author of Hebrews lists several elementary teachings of the faith: baptism, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. Apparently, these were matters of some controversy in the churches of the Hebrew Christians. This distresses the author of Hebrews. He sees these as elementary truths, truths that long ago should have been settled. Since the Hebrew Christians are still wrangling over these issues, the author of Hebrews is concerned for his readers, discerning that they are immature and possibly even unsaved.

It is interesting to me that these issues continue to stand at the heart of church controversy today. Baptists and Presbyterians (and others) argue the proper mode of and recipients for baptism. Pentecostals and non-Pentecostals argue over the state of so-called sign gifts like the laying on of hands. Liberal and non-liberal Christians squabble over the historical reality of the resurrection. And evangelicals are now divided as to whether or not there is a hell. There is little certainty about the nature of God’s eternal judgment. These disagreements do not speak well for any branch of the church. They remind us that we are in deep need of the maturity that comes from repentance and from our faith in the work of Jesus Christ.