Twenty Years in the Room and He Has Never Used Any of It

He knows more than most pastors and it has never been spent on anything.

That is not arrogance and it is not an exaggeration. He has been in that building three times a week for twenty-two years, he has read the whole thing more than once, and he has heard more teaching than most people who teach for a living.

And if you asked him to name an occasion on which any of it was used, he would have trouble.

Not used as in taught. He has not been asked to teach and does not want to. Used as in: applied to something live, at cost, where the outcome mattered and the thing he knew made the difference between what he did and what he would otherwise have done.

He can think of two, and one of them was a long time ago.

Hebrews describes people in precisely that condition and names the missing item in three words.

The diagnosis is about time and not about ability

Here is the sentence, and the first clause is about a clock.

For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. (Hebrews 5:12, King James Version)

For the time ye ought to be teachers. The measure is duration. Enough time has passed that a certain condition should have arrived, and it has not.

And notice the writer does not say they are stupid, or lazy, or insincere. He says a length of time has elapsed and a corresponding development has not occurred, which is a statement about what has been happening in the years rather than about the quality of the people.

That is worth having, because a man who reads this and hears a rebuke about his character has misheard it. The diagnosis is about a process rather than about a person.

You are being described by a clock rather than by a verdict on your ability. Hebrews 5:12 measures by the time rather than by capacity, and it is by the Spirit, Ephesians 3:16, that the strengthening in the inner man is done rather than achieved.

And then three words

The next verses give the mechanism, and it is the phrase this article is named for.

But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. (Hebrews 5:14)

By reason of use.

That is the whole thing. Not by reason of study. Not by reason of attendance, or years, or exposure, or a good memory.

Have their senses exercised. It is athletic language: a faculty trained by repetition, the way a hand becomes able to feel whether something is level.

So what separates milk from strong meat is not information. It is whether the information has been spent on anything, repeatedly, in circumstances where it had to work.

You are told the missing item is use rather than knowledge. Hebrews 5:14 says by reason of use have their senses exercised, and it is by the Spirit, Galatians 5:25, in whom a person is told to walk if they live in Him.

What use actually means here

It is worth being specific, because a man in this position will immediately think about doing more at the building, and that is not what is described.

Their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.

The faculty being trained is discernment: telling one thing from another, in real situations, where it is not obvious. That is not a platform activity and it is not a volunteering rota. It is what happens in a conversation, a decision, a Tuesday.

So use, here, means bringing what you know to bear on something actual, and the training happens by doing that repeatedly and being wrong sometimes.

Which means the man at the top of this article cannot solve his problem by taking on another responsibility at church. He would still not have used it. He would have been busier.

You are able to use it on something actual rather than take on something further. Hebrews 5:14 names discernment in real situations as the trained faculty, and it is the Spirit of truth, John 16:13, who is named as the one who guides into it.

James says the same thing with a mirror

The New Testament's other version of this is a picture and it is faintly comic.

But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. (James 1:22-24)

Deceiving your own selves. And the deception named is specific: a man who hears a great deal comes away with the impression of having done something.

That is the exact trap of a background like mine, where the volume of hearing is enormous. Three times a week for twenty-two years produces a very strong sense of engagement, and the sense is honestly come by, and James says plainly that it is not the same thing.

And the image is a man looking at his own face and forgetting it by the time he is out of the door, which is funny and is also an accurate description of what happens between a Sunday and a Tuesday.

You are able to be a doer rather than only a hearer, and Scripture names the difference. James 1:22 calls hearing only a self-deception rather than a lesser achievement, and it is by the Spirit, Philippians 2:13, that God works in a person both to will and to do.

The instruction is to go on rather than to start again

Hebrews does not tell them to go back and rebuild anything, which is what a person in this condition assumes they would be told.

Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God. (Hebrews 6:1)

Not laying again the foundation. He tells them explicitly not to.

Which is a relief and it is also the opposite of the usual instinct. A man who realizes at forty that he has never used any of it usually concludes he has to go back to the beginning and be sincere about it all over again.

The instruction is to go on. The foundation is there, laid, and does not need laying twice, and the movement asked for is forward from where the person actually is.

You are told to go on rather than to lay the foundation again. Hebrews 6:1 says not laying again the foundation, and it is by the Spirit, Philippians 1:6, whose work begun in a person is described as being performed rather than restarted.

Nothing here is a rebuke of the room

I want to say the guardrail, because this article names a whole way of doing things and could easily read as a complaint about it.

Nothing here says the hearing was wasted. Hebrews 5 does not say the milk was bad; it says a person cannot live on it forever, which is a statement about diet rather than about the people who provided it.

Twenty-two years of hearing is why this man has anything to use. He is not in a deficit; he is in a surplus that has never been drawn on, which is a completely different situation and a much better one to be in.

And the room did what a room does. Nobody in a congregation can make anybody use anything, and there is no arrangement anybody could have made that would have.

You are in a surplus rather than a deficit. Hebrews 5:12 says they ought to be teachers, which is a statement about how much they have, and it is by the Spirit, 1 Corinthians 2:12, that the things freely given are known.