Heb. 5:5-14, Obedience vs. willfulness (2)

1)    Bible Study.

a)    How do we learn obedience?

i)      Christ learned obedience by the things that He suffered (Heb. 5:8).

ii)   Children learn obedience by discipline (Eph. 6:4).

Let’s talk about Christ first.  Heb. 5:8 is in a context where the goal of life is “perfection.”  The term does not refer to “sinlessness” but to the completion of the plan God has for us.  The plan for a child is that the child become a mature person, an adult.  In Heb. 5:13-14 this is the picture we get: babes get milk because that is what they can handle; but solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.  In this passage it is important to ask: what makes a person an adult?  Is it that they have reached age 21 or 18 or 12?  No!  It is that they have had enough difficult experiences in life whereby they have a mature idea of what is good and evil.  You may argue that this is “spiritual maturity” but not applicable to everyone.  But I would say that being of “full age” (mature, an adult) does apply to everyone.  A 40-year old person that lives like a child (self-centered) is not mature.  You can call them fools if you want, but they are not adults even though they have the age and physical qualities of a normal adult.

Therefore, what Heb. 5:14 tells us is that learning obedience requires practice.  It requires being in situations where a person must distinguish and make a choice between good and evil.  The Bible has a name for these “situations.”  The Greek term is peirazo.  The term is sometimes translated “trial” but also “temptation.”  It is a type of experience where we are presented with a choice of right or wrong.  In Matt. 4:1 Jesus was led into the wilderness where He was “tempted.”  The religious leaders frequently came to Jesus with questions to “test” Him (e.g. Mt. 16:1).  Jesus, in the feeding of the 5,000, used the situation to “test” Phillip (Jn. 6:5-6).  The future time of great tribulation is an hour of “trial” (Rev. 3:10).  All these are peirazo experiences.

A form of this term is used, for example, in James 1:2, count it all joy when you fall into various trials.  A study of that passage (Jas. 1:2-5) shows how these “trials” are used in developing maturity (v4: perfect and complete).  We might read a book to learn about right and wrong.  But we won’t really “learn” until we go through a trial where we make the choice and receive the reward or consequence.  For a child, the “nurture and admonition” of a father is part of the child’s peirazo experience.  He may bring about some sort of affliction when the child had made a wrong choice, out of love for his child, so that he can learn to make choices that will reward him in life.