What I Know for Sure

The time will come when people 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 enjoy watching sports. I don’t even need to know the individuals or teams involved. There’s just something interesting about watching how individuals or teams handle themselves in the face of competition . . . whether winning or losing . . . whether at the Junior High Track Meet or in the Iditarod Sled Dog Race.

We may not be competing on any game field on Saturdays. But you and I are always involved in a competition. There is a constant struggle going on for our minds.

We live in a world that is bursting with competing truth claims. Quite a bit of our news, is not so much news. Rather, it is a writer’s attempt to tell us what to believe.

In her magazine publishing days, Oprah Winfrey had a column entitled, “What I Know for Sure”. I read a few of those columns . . .and I’m not so sure. A few decades ago, it was popular to refer to Charles Darwin when teaching science.  More and more, Darwin has fallen out of favor in the classroom.  His teachings had some not-so-kind race implications. Some of his findings have not held up under the microscope – quite literally.

Much better was a recent series of articles in this local paper by Pastor Lewis Kiger from Perry. Kiger wrote several columns over the last few couple months entitled, “Reasons we are Wrong”. The lesson? If human reason or personal experience are our truth tellers, be prepared to live in error, and with its harmful effects.

The Apostle Paul warned his fellow servant, Timothy, of the same. People “will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear”, Paul writes in 2 Timothy 4:3.

We are born with itching ears.  We love teachers who will scratch our itch and help us remain comfortably ignorant.

And then there is God’s Word. If you read Scripture with any regularity, it will offend you. The Bible confronts people of every age and culture.  It offends sinners.

In our culture, the Bible unpopularly confronts our laisse fair attitude about intimacy outside of the bonds of Biblical marriage. Interestingly enough, there are some areas of the world where Biblical standards for sex and marriage are still held in high esteem and are not in question.

But in some of those same cultures where marriage is held in high esteem, the Bible offends those who look to honor killings as a means to uphold and defend the family name. “Forgive one another just as God in Christ Jesus has forgiven you” (Ephesians 4:32) is a highly offensive sermon in some parts of the world . . . even though that might be a more acceptable sermon on a Sunday morning in Georgia.

What’s the point? We live in a world of competing truth claims. 

But there has always been an ultimate and unchanging truth standard. It is backed up by the only Person who under the testimony of numerous witnesses, died and rose again from the dead. 

Woe to any attempt to make God’s Word more palatable to the writers of the New York Times or to our own itching ears.

The Scriptures claim something about themselves, that they are our authority for faith and life. God’s Word has a higher goal in mind that making us comfortable.

What I know for sure is this. ”These things are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.” John 20:31

John Lehenbauer, Pastor

Christ Lutheran Church & School christlutheranperry@gmail.com.

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