Spiritual Babies Are Not Problems to Fix - They Are Children to Celebrate

Dann Spader remembers the birth of his first daughter with nervous anxiety. “Would I be a good dad? Could I handle the responsibility?” But when his grandchildren started arriving - five within three years - all that anxiety evaporated. “With grandchildren, all I feel is pure love and joy,” he writes. “We enjoy watching them learn to walk, talk, and feed themselves. We celebrate little things, such as first steps and potty training. The joy is in the journey itself.”

That, Spader says, is exactly how we should see new believers. Not as problems to solve, not as projects to manage, but as spiritual babies to celebrate. Every wobbly step is a reason to rejoice. Every halting prayer is a milestone. The joy is in the journey.

Two Words That Describe New Believers

The New Testament uses two Greek words for new believers, and together they paint a complete picture. The first is nepios, used in Hebrews 5:13, meaning an infant - immature and totally dependent on others. A newborn who cannot feed, walk, or talk and needs constant care. The second is teknion, used by the apostle John in 1 John 2:1, 12, and 28, meaning “little child” - a term of deep endearment. Picture a beloved grandchild: cherished, celebrated, held close.

Both words are true. New believers are genuinely immature - they do not know how to pray, read the Bible, resist temptation, share their faith, or live in community. But they are also genuinely beloved - precious to God and precious to us. We need both perspectives. Honesty about immaturity without affection becomes harsh. Affection without honesty about immaturity becomes sentimental. The biblical balance holds both together.

What Actually Happens at New Birth

When someone crosses from Chair 1 to Chair 2, the transformation is radical. Ephesians 2:5 says God “made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions.” Second Corinthians 5:17 declares, “The old has gone, the new is here!” This is not renovation. This is new creation. Christ’s righteousness is imputed (Romans 5:17, 19). Baptism is the outward expression of this inner revolution.

Yet despite this radical transformation, new believers still need nurture. They are alive - genuinely, miraculously alive - but they are helpless. A newborn baby is fully human, fully alive, fully a person, and totally incapable of caring for itself. That is not a design flaw. God intended new believers to need spiritual parents.

The Village Baby

Picture a baby born in a remote village in Central Java. The mother does not hand the infant a manual on survival. She feeds the baby, holds the baby, talks to the baby, and patiently teaches the baby everything. The child does not grow up overnight. It takes years of patient love - feeding, burping, rocking, teaching, correcting, comforting - before the child can walk independently.

A new believer is exactly the same. In a remote Javanese village, a church-planter who leads someone to Christ cannot simply hand them a Bible and say, “Read this and come to church on Sunday.” That new believer needs someone to sit with them, pray with them, answer their questions, show them how to read Scripture, walk with them through temptation, and celebrate every small step of growth. Patience is not optional. It is the defining characteristic of good spiritual parenting.

The Question That Changes Everything

The question is not whether new believers need nurture. The Bible is clear on that. The question is whether we are willing to give it. Are we willing to invest months - maybe years - in one person? Are we willing to celebrate their first halting prayer the way a grandparent celebrates a first step? Are we willing to be awakened at two in the morning when they are struggling with sin, the way a parent gets up for a crying baby?

Jesus spent up to eighteen months in the “Follow Me” stage with His disciples. He took them to a wedding, through Samaria, to the Passover, into the countryside. He was not in a hurry. Relationships take time. And the result of that patient investment was a group of unschooled, ordinary men who turned the world upside down.

If Jesus was willing to invest eighteen patient months in spiritual babies, can we do anything less?