Bible Strands
Hebrews 5:13
For everyone who lives on milk is still an infant, inexperienced in the message of righteousness.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The unnamed author of Hebrews rebukes Jewish Christians who, despite their length of faith, still require elementary instruction (v. 12). The verse is the explanatory clause behind that rebuke.
The words — ἄπειρος (apeiros) is the predicate adjective: literally "without experience," not merely "young" but untested and untrained. It marks the person's state as a deficiency, not a stage.
The thread — 1 Corinthians 14:20 pairs infantile thinking with moral infancy; 1 Peter 2:2 presents milk as a starting point meant to produce growth, not a permanent diet. Hebrews 5:13 is the only place the milk metaphor is used as a diagnosis of arrested development.
Why it lands — It asks the reader to check whether their engagement with Scripture is still at the level of basic principles or whether they can handle mature teaching. The standard is not age or tenure but demonstrated ability to distinguish good from evil (v. 14).
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Greek words
King James Version
For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe.
Cross-references
- 1 Corinthians 14:20 Brothers, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be mature.
- 1 Peter 2:2 Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation,
- 2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for instruction, for conviction, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
- Isaiah 28:9 Whom is He trying to teach? To whom is He explaining His message? To infants just weaned from milk? To babies removed from the breast?
- Ephesians 4:14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed about by the waves and carried around by every wind of teaching and by the clever cunning of men in their deceitful scheming.
- 1 Corinthians 3:1 Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual, but as worldly—as infants in Christ.
- 1 Corinthians 13:11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I set aside childish ways.
- 2 Corinthians 3:9 For if the ministry of condemnation was glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry of righteousness!
- Psalms 119:123 My eyes fail, looking for Your salvation, and for Your righteous promise.
- Matthew 11:25 At that time Jesus declared, “I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because You have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.