Posted on 10/20/2007 6:27:59 PM PDT by Charles Henrickson
“Itching Ears for Switching Errors” (2 Tim. 3:14 – 4:5)
For six weeks now, our Epistle reading has come from St. Paul’s two letters to Timothy. Throughout these epistles, over and over again, St. Paul emphasizes to his young assistant the importance of teaching in accord with sound doctrine. For instance, Paul instructs Timothy to “follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me” and to “guard the good deposit entrusted to you.” Likewise today he says to “continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed.” Paul puts a high priority on sound doctrine. It is in that vein that he gives Timothy this solemn charge:
“I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.”
“Preach the word.” Well, that raises the question of which word he is supposed to preach, but we’ll get to that in a little bit. In any case, he is to preach it and proclaim it with full confidence and without fear. “Be ready in season and out of season,” Paul says. In other words, be prepared to preach the word whether it’s popular or it’s not. There will be times when your preaching is “in season,” that is, when people are ready to hear it and receive it. And there will be times when your preaching is “out of season,” it’s unfashionable and out of step with the times and folks won’t want to listen to what you’re saying. It doesn’t matter. God has called you to preach his word, Timothy, so you be ready to go ahead and preach it, come what may. In fact, to be a faithful preacher, you’re going to have to say some things that people won’t want to hear. “Reprove, rebuke, and exhort,” Paul says. Reprove those who are erring and going astray. Rebuke their sins and errors. This reproving and rebuking can range from mild to strong, depending on the sin or the error and the level of resistance of those being reproved or rebuked. At the same time, put more positively, exhort and encourage the flock in the right direction, in the way of the truth. All these things take a lot of patience and teaching. People--yes, Christian people--are battling sin and error their whole lives long, and we don’t “arrive” until we depart this vale of tears and temptation, where the devil, the world, and our Old Adam are giving us such grief and trying to mislead us all the time. Being a faithful preacher is not easy, because the word of God is not naturally popular with people. Paul wants Timothy to realize this.
“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.”
“Itching ears”: That’s a powerful image, isn’t it? You get the picture of people who are not satisfied, not content, with the sound teaching and are looking for something else. “Yeah, yeah, that old gospel-of-Christ stuff. We’ve heard that, and frankly, we’re tired of it! Bor-ing! Give us something new, something different, something exciting! Can’t you see our ears are itching? And we want you to scratch our itch!”
That’s the pressure that people will put on their preachers, and if the preachers won’t give the people what they want, those folks will move on and find a church and a pastor that tells them what they want to hear. Itching ears.
Sad to say, there are plenty of preachers who will scratch their itch. They will offer people something other than the word that God wants to be preached, which is the gospel of his Son, Jesus Christ. They will put something else in its place as “the main thing.” That’s the danger. It was the danger back when Paul wrote to Timothy, and it is still the danger today: Churches and preachers that “switch out” the gospel as the main thing and substitute something else, in order to satisfy those itching ears. That’s why I call this problem, “Itching Ears for Switching Errors.” Let’s look at several examples of these “switching errors” that are popular today, and then I want to close by preaching the word to you that does agree with sound doctrine.
“Itching Ears for Switching Errors.” First example: A social-political agenda as the main thing. This can come from either the left or the right. Liberal churches--like the ELCA, for instance--switch out the gospel of Christ and in its place preach a message that resembles a policy platform from the Democratic National Committee: government programs, political correctness, and social justice, as they envision it. But then the same problem can be found on the other side, from a conservative perspective. Many preachers spend all their time decrying the moral decline in our country--abortion, homosexuality, etc.--and make the big thing to call our nation back to traditional moral values. Now I happen to agree with those social conservatives, for the most part, on those important issues. But the problem is when that becomes your “gospel.” The problem is when that’s what you preach in church as “the main thing.” It’s not. There are a lot of things that may be right and true and in line with God’s law, but they are not yet the gospel. You can try to transform society and work through the political process--and we should, as good citizens--but that is not the distinctive thing that the Christian church has to offer. What the church has to offer, and only the church has to offer, and what people cannot find anywhere else, is the life-giving, eternally life-saving, gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That’s the big thing that needs to be preached.
Example #2 of “Itching Ears for Switching Errors”: When preachers substitute a gospel of success and prosperity and personal improvement, which is really no gospel at all. The most famous example of that these days is the guy who promises you “Your Best Life Now.” Well, sorry, Joel Osteen, our best life is not now. In fact, our life now in this world may be full of sickness and sadness and sorrow, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we’re not being faithful Christians. God’s love for us is hidden behind the cross. Now this same false teacher also is teaching you how to “Become a Better You.” Well, no, I don’t need a “better” me. I need a new me. The old me is a lost and condemned sinner, no matter how nice I may try to spruce him up. I need the new life that only Jesus Christ can give, and he gives it to a whole bunch of lousy people who have trouble getting their act together. That’s what I need to hear.
Third example, switching error: You don’t have enough purpose driving you in your life. This error may be a little more subtle, because the guy starts out by saying, “It’s not about you,” meaning, it’s not about your pleasures and happiness and personal fulfillment. Rather, the purpose of your life is to live for God, serve God, etc. But you see, according to this teaching, it still is about you. It’s about what you can do for God, instead of what God has done and is doing and will do for you. And that’s the switching error. It substitutes the law for the gospel. And when the law becomes your gospel, you either become a proud Pharisee, thinking you’re doing it pretty good, or else you fall into despair and defeat, because you realize you can’t do it. Now the law is good and right and true--love God and love your neighbor--but it cannot save us, because we do not keep it. For that we need the gospel.
Last example of the switching error, and this one strikes close to home in our Missouri Synod. And that’s the “mission activism” sermon. “Missions is Job One!” “Missions is the Main Thing, so let’s make the Main Thing the main thing!” Rah, rah! Ablaze! Critical event! Missions! “There are people going to hell every time I snap my fingers, and it’s your fault because you’re not doing enough!” You hear these kinds of messages a lot in our synod these days. But again, this is a switching error. It substitutes our efforts at getting the gospel out for the gospel itself. These preachers, even synod officials, talk about the gospel, the importance of spreading it, but they don’t really get around to actually delivering the gospel to the folks they’re trying to get all revved up. But even lifelong Lutherans need to hear the life-giving gospel--for them! And ironically, when you yourself have had your thirst quenched, you’re going to be more excited about passing that life along to others--without me having to browbeat you over the head to do it!
So that’s what I’m going to do now--quench your thirst with the water of life--lest I myself be guilty of the switching error! I want to preach the gospel to you, you who need to hear it. Yes, you need to hear it, because like me, you too like to put other things at the center. My ears get itchy and I want to hear something else. But then I discover, once again, that that other thing is empty and a dead end. I need the gospel, something that comes from outside of me, from God, for me. It’s the gospel, the good news of my Savior, your Savior, Jesus Christ. That’s what your ears really long to hear, Christian, new person in Christ: Your sins are forgiven! You have eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord! What sweet good news this is! Music to our ears!
This is what you have learned. This is what you firmly believe. This is what the Scriptures declare and deliver: Salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. That, my friends, is the Main Thing! Not what we do. What God does. What God does by sending his only Son from heaven, down to our hall of sin and misery and death. You have a purpose-driven Savior. His purpose was to rescue you from the mess you were in and could not get out of, no matter how hard you might try. This purpose drove Jesus all the way to the cross, where he suffered and died for you. What would Jesus do? He would die for the sins of the world, including yours. And this payment for sin--the holy precious blood of the innocent Son of God--this was so complete that it conquered death and damnation and hell itself! This is how much God loves you! This is how thoroughly Christ has saved you! You have perfect righteousness before God because of Christ. God loves you and accepts you, pure in his sight. When Christ Jesus comes again to judge the living and the dead, he will declare you righteous and innocent. Can you believe it? Yes, you can! You have eternal life--your best life forever--because of Christ. Whatever comes to you now in this life, it cannot touch your salvation. Not your adversities. Not your failures. You belong to God. He put his name on you in your baptism. He puts his forgiveness in your mouth, with the very body and blood of Christ. This is a sure thing. And this is the Main Thing.
“Itching Ears for Switching Errors”? No, the sweet gospel of Christ for ears that long to hear! Hallelujah! Amen.
But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.
I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
Ping.
I loved the way that you slowly circled around each pseudo-gospel, beginning with the easy target of the ELCA, then moving toward popular televangelists, and finally zeroing in on the Ablaze! fanatics of your own fellowship.
Brilliant! In form and substance, just like Amos!
I hope you noticed, in the same paragraph, I said the same error can be committed on the social-political right, as well.
And I wasn't thinking (consciously) about Amos's approach when I wrote it, but now that you mention it, I see the similarity.
I did indeed. I remember writing something very similar a quarter century ago in my Seminar's student rag about how the left had confused the Nuclear Freeze for the Gospel and how the right had made a similar confusion in the Moral Majority.
As I recall, very few actually got the point and I managed to antagonize the extremists in both camps.
Then again, Amos and Jeremiah didn't win many friends as they influenced people.
God bless you.
I once had a great idea for a reality show. I met this guy I called the fleamarket preacher out of Georgia. He would travel around the country in a station wagon and selling at flea markets on Saturdays to make ends meet (I bought a waistpack from him) and on Sundays he would substitute for whatever preacher/pastor needed a day off. I sort of thought it would be kewl for the flea market preacher to have a crack at Joel Osteen's congregation for one Sunday while Osteen took over in the flea market preacher slot, living and working out of that old station wagon for a week.
bump
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