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New Testament Reading - Mature Christians

¹Let us stop going over the same old ground again and again, always teaching those first lessons about Christ. Let us go on instead to other things and become mature in our understanding, as strong Christians ought to be. Surely we don’t need to speak further about the foolishness of trying to be saved by being good, or about the necessity of faith in God; ²you don’t need further instruction about baptism and spiritual gifts^a and the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment.

³The Lord willing, we will go on now to other things.

⁴There is no use trying to bring you back to the Lord again if you have once understood the Good News and tasted for yourself the good things of heaven and shared in the Holy Spirit, ⁵and know how good the Word of God is, and felt the mighty powers of the world to come, ⁶and then have turned against God. You cannot bring yourself to repent again if you have nailed the Son of God to the cross again by rejecting him, holding him up to mocking and to public shame.

⁷When a farmer’s land has had many showers upon it and good crops come up, that land has experienced God’s blessing upon it. ⁸But if it keeps on having crops of thistles and thorns, the land is considered no good and is ready for condemnation and burning off.

⁹Dear friends, even though I am talking like this I really don’t believe that what I am saying applies to you. I am confident you are producing the good fruit that comes along with your salvation. ¹⁰For God is not unfair. How can he forget your hard work for him, or forget the way you used to show your love for him — and still do — by helping his children? ¹¹And we are anxious that you keep right on loving others as long as life lasts, so that you will get your full reward.