“Of whom we have much to say, and hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing” (Hebrews 5:11).

Some things in the Bible are hard to explain (cf. 2 Pet. 3:16), especially for Christians who have not grown in their knowledge of God’s word as they should. Yet the difficult things of God’s word are not optional reading. They are given to us for the purpose of increasing our faith, but they require a certain amount of spiritual maturity and previous understanding of the simpler things in God’s word in order to understand them. God wants us to take in all of his word, the simple and the difficult. All of it is helpful to our faith. Preachers and teachers of God’s word today must take a cue from the author of Hebrews not only to delve into the deeper things of the word for themselves but also to bring their hearers into the profound depths of the word with them. A teacher or preacher who only feeds his hearers with the fundamentals does them a great disservice, for by doing so he keeps them at a level of spiritual weakness that proves dangerous when they must rely upon their faith in times of trouble. It is by increasing our knowledge of the word that we gain strength to fight off the temptations of unfaithfulness.

- Commentary on Hebrews, pages 200-201