For 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)

Road signs can help us to slow down, take caution, or avoid danger. The scriptures also regularly warn us to take shelter from folly, sin, and misjudgment.

Let’s face it, no one likes to be told “you’ve been doing it wrong” or “your sources aren’t accurate.” Our pride feels threatened, and maybe also our sense of control. What we thought we understood and could manage, we are finding out, is more complicated than we knew. New information comes to the light, and it compromises our previously held assumptions and challenges our view of a person or a particular issue. That’s uncomfortable. It requires humility to update our assessments and not get entrenched in rigid or shallow conclusions.

In psychology, we call it “confirmation bias” when we listen for evidence and facts that confirm what we already believe. It’s an unhealthy program in our human nature. This scripture verse is showing what happens when we take that a step further. We see an active animosity towards “sound doctrine” and towards instruction that produces truth, wellness, and health. The close-mindedness of people will reach a point where they will draw knives against the truth even when the truth is empirically verified. We see a rigid entrenchment in their “desires” and an instinct to defend their bias instead of a suppleness towards godliness or veracity. The verse goes even a step further. They will marshal—not just refutation—but teachers, who will reinforce their view of the world, even if those views are patently wrong. Our bias then begins to infect our institutions and social structures.

This bias begins as a spiritual problem. We do well to remember that the human heart is not just prideful and depraved, it is also ignorant. Great evil is often done in the name of compassion. Our first step is to admit that our assessments can be deeply flawed and our “desires” are not always in the best interest of ourselves or others. Desires to be right, to be viewed as knowledgeable, to be someone’s hero, or to shape the world the way I want it to look can lead to disaster. This evolves into more than a spiritual problem. It spreads out from the heart and infects our society. It gets reiterated in our communications and media, and it gets reinforced down through our institutions. Our “desires” can warp the truth in our news, families, churches, academies, or civic structures.  

It’s important to be reminded from time to time that mankind is desperately broken and selfish. Each of us needs humility to recognize that none of us sees clearly. We need to constantly seek the truth and seek the God of truth. We need his transforming work within us. And finally, we need wisdom not to be lured away by the fatal distortions all around.

Tags: truth, wisdom, sin, humility, healing, transformation, selfish, lies, perception, assumptions, sinful nature, bias, fatal, distortion, misjudgment, confirmation bias