top of page
Search

The Solution for Itching Ears

HighBeamMinistry.com

“For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, will multiply teachers for themselves because they have an itch to hear what they want to hear. They will turn away from hearing the truth and will turn aside to myths.” (2 Timothy 4:3-4 CSB)

 

I thought for sure that I was in serious trouble.

 

When I was in college, a girlfriend shared with me how her father would sometimes itch his ear canals, using an object like a key rather than his fingertip. The only problem with doing so is that the ear canal’s skin can get scratched easily, become infected, and result in some really nasty, hearing-endangering business. That’s precisely what happened to her father. Thankfully, he caught the infection early, and with medical attention, he averted a potentially disastrous outcome.

 

Usually, I learn from the mistakes of others. Not this time. Recently, I used a Q-tip—you know, one of those sticks with bunny-soft cotton ends—for a little inner ear massage. Stupidly, I enjoyed scratching my itchy ear just a little too much. I scoured my ear canal, and, you guessed it, started a painful and near-sound-silencing episode.

 

Over the course of a week, I progressively lost my hearing on my left side. Thank the Lord’s mercy and grace, the infection didn’t affect my inner ear mechanics. The ear canal was the only problem, but it was a big one. It almost swelled shut. It was filled with fluid and yuck, preventing voices and other lovely sounds like my wife’s voice from reaching my foolish brain. The result of my affliction was that sound was blocked, clarity was reduced (I said, “What?” a lot, to my wife’s chagrin), and accuracy about what was said was highly compromised.

 

After suffering through this for a week with no relief, I told my chiropractor about it, and he recommended two things: hydrogen peroxide and colloidal silver spray. First, the hydrogen peroxide. What a trip that was. My wife used a dropper to introduce the liquid, and in moments, it sounded like fireworks were going off in my head, not to mention the weird sizzling sound as the yucky byproducts of the infection were being dissolved. After a short application, I gently drained and dabbed the spent fluid. Then, I gently sprayed the colloidal silver, let it soak for a bit, and then patted it up ever so gently. It really helped. I could hear a little better.

 

Within two days, the infection was nearly gone, and by day four, my ear was healed and my hearing had returned to normal.

 

No, this isn’t a pitch for hydrogen peroxide and colloidal silver. It’s an illustration of what so many people are experiencing today on a spiritual level.

 

The ministry in which I’m involved, High Beam Ministry, utilizes various social media platforms to share insights about God’s Word, helping people find their way through life with Him (High Beam Ministry’s tagline is Shining the Light of God’s Truth on the Road Ahead. Check out the rest of the website, please). I often surf YouTube, Rumble, X, Facebook, and other online media to see what’s being produced regarding God’s Word.

 

While some things benefit a maturing Christian’s life, so much of what I see is garbage. Maybe I didn’t emphasize that enough. SO MUCH OF WHAT I SEE IS GARBAGE. (Maybe I should make that boldface with red letters?)

 

I’m grateful for the online material that’s rock-solid and firmly based on the clear, precise, and skilled exegesis of the scriptures. As a pastor for over thirty years, I appreciate clarity coupled with profound insights that draw out what the Lord wants us to know, so we can learn from and live it.

 

However, after years of interaction with various social media, Christian denominations, movements, conferences, and events, I’m still gobsmacked by the amount of ridiculous, frivolous, sensationalistic pop-theology that is nothing more than over-the-top, clickbait to grab unsuspecting persons’ attention to garner website traffic and ad revenue.

 

Beyond the social media venue, I can’t even tell you how often someone has approached me with, “Have you heard Teacher This or Prophet That or Apostle So and So? They have the most INCREDIBLE take on Enoch’s translation into heaven, which correlates with the fifth moon of the February leap year that explains precisely when Jesus will return before, during, and after the Rapture, if at all.”

 

Also, did you know that there isn’t a single Holy Spirit? Well, according to a guy who approached me years ago at a congregational picnic, there are actually SEVEN Holy Spirits. “Seriously. No kidding. It’s right there in Revelation 1:4, 3:1, 4:5, and 5:6,” he informed me with a gleam of great knowing in his eyes and hefty measure of delusional self-assurance. I nodded my head and quickly excused myself. I didn’t buy what he was selling because I’m a student of scripture, and I know the foundational tenets of Judeo-Christian theology, contextual hermeneutics, and common sense.

 

What’s even worse than the weirdness mentioned above is the outright blasphemy spewed into the blogosphere and every other sphere from those trying to justify their sin by using God’s word. Check out protestia.com, which tracks the looniness and outrageous blasphemy that undiscerning Christians are gobbling up.

 

And therein lies the problem. People like to hear juicy stuff rather than God’s truth. There are a variety of reasons why:

 

  • Pride. Knowing something that someone else doesn’t know (even if it’s wacked to the max) puffs up a person’s pride. “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up” (2 Corinthians 8:1).

  • o promote speculation rather than sound teaching. “Instruct certain people not to teach false doctrine or to pay attention to myths and endless genealogies. These promote empty speculations rather than God’s plan, which operates by faith” (1 Timothy 1:3-4).

  • To affirm one’s desires. “(They) will multiply teachers for themselves because they have an itch to hear what they want to hear” (2 Timothy 4:3).

  • Truth avoidance. “They will turn away from hearing the truth and will turn aside to myths” (2 Timothy 4:4).

  • Obedience avoidance.

 

Know what I mean?

 

So, let’s get back to the ear infection illustration. People of all stripes, including Christians, have “itching ears.”

 

“‘Itching ears’ is a figure of speech that refers to people’s desires, felt needs, or wants. It is these desires that impel a person to believe whatever he wants to believe rather than the actual truth itself. When people have ‘itching ears,’ they decide for themselves what is right or wrong, and they seek out others to support their notions. ‘Itching ears’ are concerned with what feels good or comfortable, not with the truth—after all, truth is often uncomfortable. Paul’s warning is that the church would one day contain those who only opened their ears to those who would ‘scratch their’ itch’” (gotquestions.org).

 

I’m not surprised that this is a common auditory condition that afflicts worldly people. However, itching ears are way too common among Christians today, as I pointed out above. In their lust to scratch their itch, some Christians allow harmful things to “sink into their ears,” a Hebrew idiom about “paying heed to and embracing fully to the point of obedience” what they hear. Harmful content can create a metaphorical infection of error that causes the listener’s pride to swell, much like an ear canal reacts to an actual infection. This prideful swelling blocks out most, if not all, other sound resulting in a loss of clarity and accuracy as to what should be heard. Without getting too graphic, such spiritual ear infections can produce really yucky stuff that aggravates the hearer, and in extreme cases, repulses others.

 

How can such an ear-infected Christian be healed?

 

First, they must identify what they listened to that produced the symptoms of pride, loss of clear spiritual hearing, and advancing deafness. What was in the received input that caused the Christian to believe what they wanted to think and reinforced their error rather than the truth (also known as confirmation bias). Or what was it in the Christian’s life that made them believe they were the sole authority to determine what was right or wrong as opposed to the Lord? And who are those around them who introduced the harmful content into their ears?

 

Second, they need to stop scratching their itch! I once shared with an Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor that using a Q-Tip was so gosh darn satisfying. It felt so good to massage my inner ear with the cotton puff stick. After throwing me to the floor and putting me in a chokehold, the Good Doctor reprimanded me and told me never to do that, as it can lead to infections (as I learned) and an eardrum puncture, contributing to permanent hearing loss. (I was kidding about his wrestling moves, but he really was that adamant.)

 

Christians should be the paragons of truth-seekers, regardless of how tempting it is to scratch one’s itch to hear sensational things or massage an itch to disobey. The more we scratch that itch, the more we run the risk of losing our spiritual hearing and become deaf to the Holy Spirit’s voice.

 

Thirdly, we need to apply the cleansing “solution,” a generous dose of God’s truth, to kill the infection and dissolve the yucky stuff produced by the spiritual pathogen—pride, behaviors, attitudes, errant thinking, and the like—anything that doesn’t align with Jesus’ standards. As the errant teaching and byproducts are dissolved away, the prideful swelling shrinks. Clarity and accuracy can then return, thank God!

 

Sadly, though, with the advent of unvetted social media and wayward leaders, and untrained teacher-wannabes, so much of what reaches our ears is spiritually, emotionally, and mentally pathogenic. Too many Christians, usually those who are not grounded in the Bible and are spiritually immature, “major in the minors, diverting to speculating about secondary matters and irrelevancies, instead of doing God’s work, which requires not useless information but ongoing trust in God and His Messiah, Yeshua” (Stern). In their search for a sensationalistic Q-Tip to scratch their ear-itch, they pursue “teaching that (is) fanciful and without a serious basis” (Holman Christian Study Bible commentary).

 

Paul warns us about the importance of sound teaching, which is critical for spiritual maturity, but it sometimes won’t be tolerated because it doesn’t make us feel good or just plain frustrates our desire to sin.

 

Believe me, I don’t need sensational, ear-tickling teachings to tempt me to sin. I manage just fine on my own.

 

What I really need is a good dose of the Lord’s anti-itch solution instead.

 

A special note to you, dear reader: I want to know what you think of the Frothy Thoughts Blog. If you’d like, please send a brief email to HighBeamMinistry@gmail.com with your thoughts on this blog, or to let me know you’ve read it. Your response can be a sentence or a page. Don’t worry. High Beam Ministry won’t use your email for spam. For notifications about new material, please use the subscribe button on the website. Thanks so much for reading and replying!

 

Sources:

 

Shining the Light of God’s Truth on the Road Ahead

 

Pastor Jay Christianson

The Truth Barista, Frothy Thoughts

bottom of page