“They Will Turn Their Ears Away From the Truth”

An itch has power. 

Ask anyone who has worn a cast. That crawling feeling—building, growing, until the mind narrows to the mercy of a single scratch.

An itch is hard to resist.

Itching ears

Paul wrote to his protégé Timothy about something that would happen to some of the disciples of Jesus Christ: “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables” (2 Timothy 4:3-4, emphasis added throughout).

Sound doctrine is another way of saying “truth,” and the danger isn’t that something happens to truth. People just stop wanting it. Not because it loses its power or becomes less life-changing, but because a different itch starts to take over:

An itch shaped by personal desires. 

This was a prophecy about the Church: members abandoning the gospel message for things that sounded better or felt nicer.

What they would land on instead were, of course, shams. Lies dressed up in something shiny, packaged in all the right ways, but empty in the end. 

Trading truth for something else

What makes a group of Christians give up everything and walk away from the truth that once set them free? 

The same tug that pulls humanity as a whole away from truth: we want our ears scratched by things we like. Things more comfortable—things that don’t require a big change in how we think. 

Satan has launched a war of deception on humanity, and he would love nothing more than to sweep us up in it.  That’s a struggle for us, because as Christians our job is to live by every word of God (Matthew 4:4), and the Bible wasn’t written to indulge us. It was written to challenge us. It cuts like a double-edged sword, laying naked the thoughts and intentions of our hearts (Hebrews 4:12). It holds up a mirror and shows us personal flaws and the sins we have not yet overcome (James 1:23-25).

It doesn’t always tell us what’s comfortable to hear. And if our minds aren’t conditioned to be corrected and satisfied by what the Bible says, we may start feeling the itch to turn to something else.

“For the time is coming when men will not tolerate wholesome teaching. They will want something to tickle their own fancies, and they will collect teachers who will pander to their own desires. They will no longer listen to the truth, but will wander off after man-made fictions” (2 Timothy 4:3, J.B. Phillips New Testament).

How to combat itching ears

The big question is, How can we avoid becoming the kind of people who set aside the truth for something else? How can we avoid being deceived by our own desires? It can happen—and it will happen to some—but in the end, the ball is in our court.

God doesn’t leave us powerless in how we respond to the truth He gives us. There are real, practical steps we can take to train our minds spiritually. If we want to value truth more than anything else, we must practice the following three keys.

1. Cultivate humility

Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” This is what we’re up against. This is man’s default state. Buried in each of our hearts is a measure of self-deception that tugs on our better judgment, encouraging us to exchange reality in favor of lies.

We’re fallible.

But God doesn’t tell us that because He wants us to throw up our hands and avoid trying. The goal is for us to move away from a reckless “I can’t be tricked” attitude and learn to rely on God for spiritual strength.

Paul put it to the Corinthians very simply, “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12). 

The problem with some members in Corinth was that they were too sure of themselves—certain they would not “fall.” It was pride. 

Another group had the same issue: the Laodiceans. 

Jesus gave them a stinging rebuke: “You say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’—and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked” (Revelation 3:17).

In both cases, the problem was self-reliance. And sooner or later, self-reliance will drive a wedge between us and truth. 

Jesus Christ is the only One who has ever successfully cut through every form of deception that tried to take root in His mind (1 Peter 2:22). And it’s His power—His desire for truth—that works in us through the Holy Spirit. If our confidence isn’t in Him, then we’re headed for a fall. 

Humility is key to pursuing truth.

2. Surround yourself with the right teachers

The people in Jeremiah’s day had something in common with the people Paul was warning Timothy about.

“An astonishing and horrible thing has been committed in the land: the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own power; and My people love to have it so” (Jeremiah 5:30-31). 

The descendants of Judah loved the teachers of their day and made a habit of listening to them. But they were liars. They led the people astray and turned them against right teachers—men like Jeremiah, who preached the unadulterated Word of God.

God still has servants today who speak the truth—ministers who handle Scripture correctly and teach wholesome things. 

We don’t have to entertain the teachings of impostors; we can choose to surround ourselves with godly leaders who look after our spiritual welfare (Hebrews 13:17).

3. Remember what the truth has done and continues to do for you

God made it possible for those He has called to understand His truth through a miracle. We had no part in starting that. God reached down and shone His light in our minds.

Because of that, followers of Christ have a clear picture of the gospel of the Kingdom of God. 

We know what God is doing. He’s reproducing Himself—bringing humanity into His eternal family (Hebrews 2:10). We know that plan turns on one hinge: His Son, who gave His life to achieve forgiveness and reconciliation (1 Peter 1:18-19).

We also know the way of life God calls us to live (Exodus 20:1-17). And we know where that way leads: “For our dying bodies must be transformed into bodies that will never die” (1 Corinthians 15:53, New Living Translation). 

This truth is special. And it’s precious. 

But there have always been—and will always be—things that try to compete with it. Not long after the Church began, variants of the “faith once delivered” started spreading (Jude 1:3). Paul warned about the disciples accepting “another Jesus” (2 Corinthians 11:4) and turning to a “different gospel” (Galatians 1:6). The truth was being challenged by impostors who were looking to gain a following. 

And they succeeded in some cases, because certain disciples failed to recognize the value of the truth they had been handed.

Never let the truth go

Satan has launched a war of deception on humanity, and he would love nothing more than to sweep us up in it. 

He knows exactly what pulls people away from the truth. He used the precise levers necessary in order to convince Eve to trade the truth for a lie. But we don’t have to give him a foothold in our minds. Through God’s Spirit, we can curb every desire that might cause us to walk away from the truth.

Hebrews urges us, “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering” (Hebrews 10:23). 

Let’s cling to God’s truth with everything we’ve got, refusing to scratch any itch that asks us to let the truth go.