2 Timothy 4:3

"For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear."
- 2 Timothy 4:3

I'm trying to diversify the source of my quotes here, so I hope I'm not offending anyone by quoting from the Bible. I'm a Christian, so that's one book I should be very familiar with, right?

This verse really struck me. I came across it during my 1st week of BSF (Bible Study Fellowship) and it left a strong impact on me.

The topic for that week was of Jesus' parables and how believers are mixed with non-believer and false believers, until the End of Days when we are judged.

Referring to my previous post about looking for teachers, I think this is very apt to introduce this verse (or quote, if you like) here. When looking for the person to seek guidance from, are we really learning the right thing?

This reminds me of that Gold 90.5 commercial from sometime back:


Many times, we just choose the things we like to hear, which the commercial shows to a very entertaining extent. How then are we making sure that what we learn is what we OUGHT to learn?

At work, we more than often tend to ignore our boss' advice. Many of us prefer a boss who can sayang us, tell us good things, even though we know we're not performing. On the contrary, people hate bosses who like to kick their arses around.

I'm not here to judge, and situations do differ from one person to another, but the thinking point here is "Could he be doing the right thing by kicking my arse?" Sometimes, we just need a push. A push to get ahead, a push to move up, a push to better ourselves. Just a push.

Of course, we prefer this push comes from people we like, friends, family, spouse/significant other, but how about the people we don't like (eg. many of our bosses)? They could be doing the right thing for us, just that maybe perhaps we fail to recognise it?

Back to the Biblical implication. This is a warning about our individual faith, and how we fail to place seeking God as the foremost goal. When this happens, people turn away from the true Word and listen to what they want to listen.

There are many debates out there, especially among the Christian community. Some may be viewed as being secular by having rock concerts as worship sessions, some claim traditional churches are too strict in their traditions that they do not conform to the Word, quite a lot of finger-pointing, if you ask me... But who's to judge? You? Me? Or should we defer judgement to a higher entity?

Christian or not, what about yourself? Are you the type who listens only to what/who you choose to listen to? How open-minded are you really?