“They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear.”
I read an article the other day by a reputable and experienced doctor about how bad cheese is for a person’s overall health. Apparently, it’s one of the worst things we can eat. Well, I love cheese, so in a matter of seconds, I was online searching for articles that would tell me what I wanted to hear — i.e., cheese actually isn’t that bad. Of course, I found such articles, but they weren’t written by reputable, well-studied doctors or nutritionists. They were likely written by people like me, who wanted an excuse to keep eating cheese. I was itching to hear what I wanted to hear, not what was true.
In Paul’s second letter to Timothy, he admonished the young pastor to boldly proclaim the gospel message “whether convenient or not” (v. 2), because a time was coming when people “will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear” (v. 3, NLT).
As Solomon once said, there's nothing new under the sun! Our society is filled with people who have itchy ears, ears that only want to hear what will feed into and justify their own sinful and selfish desires. And the scary thing is, it’s so easy to find people — even people who say they're Christians — teaching these sorts of messages.
We live in a culture that doesn't promote absolute Truth but instead tells people to "do what makes them happy" or "feels right" to them. The problem is, obedience has very little to do with "feeling" right. Instead, those of us who are children of God obey because we know that, while obedience may not feel good at the time, it will always, always, always result in freedom and blessing and joy. God doesn't give us guidelines to abide by in order to stifle us or ruin our fun; instead, He does so in order that we might experience the abundant life He longs to give us, and as our Creator He knows exactly what that takes!
Our itchy ears can find justification for just about anything, but as Christian women, we need to constantly go back to the Word of God, which never changes. We must be careful not to be swayed by the trendy teachings of today’s world; instead, we must ground ourselves on Scripture no matter what culture throws our way, fulfilling Paul’s admonishment to “be serious about everything, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, [and] fulfill your ministry” (2 Timothy 4:5).
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