Heb 5:13-14 CSB Now everyone who lives on milk is inexperienced with the message about righteousness, because he is an infant. (14) But solid food is for the mature—for those whose senses have been trained to distinguish between good and evil.
It is unsatisfactory to remain a baby in spiritual matters. This is true because a spiritual infant, living on milk… is inexperienced with the teaching about righteousness. It is not so much that a spiritual “infant” lacks information – though at first he obviously does – but rather that he has not yet learned to put “the teaching about righteousness” to effective use. He lacks the skill which goes with maturity and which results in the ability to make appropriate moral choices. Such ability is exactly what is possessed by those who… have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. That kind of person can handle solid food.
Once more the writer betrayed his concern about his readers’ ability to reject the false ideas which confronted them. Had they been sufficiently mature they would be able to “distinguish” those ideas as “evil” over against the truths they should have known were “good.” But he feared that this capability was not yet really theirs, though he would make every effort to instill it in them.
