11 Concerning this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull and sluggish in [your spiritual] hearing and disinclined to listen. 12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers [because of the time you have had to learn these truths], you actually need someone to teach you again the elementary principles of God’s word [from the beginning], and you have come to be continually in need of milk, not solid food. 13 For everyone who lives on milk is [doctrinally inexperienced and] unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a spiritual infant. 14 But solid food is for the [spiritually] mature, whose senses are trained by practice to distinguish between what is morally good and what is evil.

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Like a smack upside the head can come from out of the blue, so this admonishment seems to come from nowhere and shock the listeners. The writer has just unloaded some deep, glorious truth about our high priest and our position in Christ, like our eternal salvation and ability to come to God to receive mercy and find grace. And He is about to share with them much more doctrine. It’s like the writer virtually grabs them by the shoulders and shakes them saying, “Wake up you spiritual babies! This is solid food for your soul. You need this!” It seems they had heard this before but it had fallen on deaf ears. Is that us?

So, how do we become spiritually mature? Train our ears by practice – read and study His Word; use it to discern good and evil then do the good and avoid the evil; remember who our high priest is; remember who we are in Him; trust Him and follow His example of obedience in testing. 

How much do we engage the Word of God and put it to practice in our lives? Or are we just “hearers of the Word and not doers”? (James 1:22 “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” (ESV) Maybe this passage is a smack upside the head for you too.