…makes such a difference.  I found this out just today as I was prepping for a sermon this weekend on Hebrews 5:11-14.  This passage exposes spiritual immaturity specifically highlighting the sluggish hearing to which the readers have fallen prey.  They ought to be living out the implications of the Gospel and sharing that with others (like Jesus commanded in the Great Commission).  Instead, they are needing a steady diet of milk, getting nourished again on what the Gospel is and how it relates to life  Then, in v.14, we read:

But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

The phrase translated “constant practice” reflects how most translations understand the original word in the text, transliterated as hexis. It’s only used one time in the Bible and its meaning is hard to get at. What this verse means with the translation “constant practice” has the implication that mature and those who are working hard to hold onto their mature state must constantly practice to have discernment.

Researching this word today, I came across a journal article by John Lee from 1997 on what this word means and he proposes this translation:

But solid food is for adults, who because of their mature state have their senses trained to distinguish good and bad.

The implication of this is simply staggering. Instead of working hard to be mature, the state of being mature means having good senses to distinguish good and bad.  This is more in keeping with the Gospel, it seems to me.

The translation and interpretation mentioned first above almost suggest a works oriented system.  The latter seems to suggest that the Gospel does a work that leads to perseverance.  This leads O’Brien to write (in his Pillar commentary on Hebrews):

So because of their mature condition, the faculties of adults, that is, their physical senses including their minds, have been trained to discern both good and evil.

The Christian world, in some pockets, is consumed with knowing the Word, eating the meat of the Word and moving onto maturity. The writer of Hebrews is saying that the work of the Gospel in our lives naturally leads to maturity. If we would continue to flesh out the implications of the Gospel in our lives, we would inevitably end up mature.

Just one word does, indeed, make all the difference.