This morning, one of those “encounters” with the CSB that I knew would happen when I started using the translation for my morning readings this year but didn’t know from where. Reading a familiar passage in Hebrews and then, BAM!, an unfamiliar nuance is highlighted. And I think it’s saying that an inability to understand Scripture is less about a condition and more about a crime.

The writer to the Hebrews has been writing about the superiority of Jesus for those who are questioning whether walking in the new way of Jesus is really worth all the difficulty they’ve encountered since choosing to no longer be in bondage to the old way of law and Jewish tradition. He’s making the case that it’s worth it because it’s better. And it’s better because Jesus is better. Better than the prophets. Better than the angels. Better even than Moses. And then he starts to breakdown how Jesus is better (like, way better) than the priesthood. And it’s as he gets ready to dive deep into Jesus’ superiority as a high priest that the writer pauses.

About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.

(Hebrews 5:11 ESV)

That’s how I’ve always read that verse. But here’s how I read it this morning:

We have a great deal to say about this, and it is difficult to explain, since you have become too lazy to understand.

(Hebrews 5:11 CSB)

Hmm . . . dull of hearing vs. too lazy to understand. At first, they sound pretty different to me. But noodle on it a bit and it isn’t hard to see how similar the two phrases are. How does one become dull of hearing? They’ve become too lazy to understand.

While the writer to the Hebrews is getting into some meaty stuff, his concern about his readers’ understanding isn’t that the material will be too difficult to comprehend. It’s not that it’s too “academic.” Not that it’ll be a 301 class for 101 people. It’s that they were dull. And the reason they were dull is that they were lazy. And, while dull might be a state, lazy is a sin.

They had become dull of hearing, had become too lazy to understand. They didn’t start that way. When receiving the gospel it sounds like they were eating up the gospel. When the dots were first connected as to how Moses and the prophets pointed to Jesus, their hearts were alive to the truth. But then, they became — became dull because they had become lazy.

Don’t know why. Too hard to follow Jesus? Too tempting to follow the world? Too easy to follow the flesh?

Lot of reasons to not to read our bibles. But that we can’t understand our bibles, isn’t one of them. After all, along with the Holy Scriptures we’ve been promised the indwelling Holy Spirit to illuminate them and make them known. The Spirit of truth, who has been given to us forever and will remain in us (Jn. 14:16-17), is the Spirit of truth who ultimately reveals to us truth in the scriptures (Jn. 16:13-14). But that we have the Spirit doesn’t mean it isn’t going to require a little work on our part.

Ours is to not be lazy. Ours is to resist the propensity to be content with being dull. Ours is to read, to study, and to meditate. We are to be workers (that’s a “not lazy” word) “who don’t need to be ashamed, correctly teaching the word of truth” (2Tim. 2:15). And, while we may not all be called to teach a class, there is a divine expectation that, over time, we all “ought to be teachers” (Heb. 5:12). Only then will we become mature. Only then will we be able to digest “solid food.” Only then will we be able to “distinguish between good and evil.” (Heb. 5:13-14).

Let’s not settle for the condition of being dull of hearing. Rather, let’s respond to God’s kindness as He calls us to repent of the crime of being too lazy to understand.

Only by His grace. Always for His glory.