There is a speaker who uses his own children to illustrate the verse. He doesn’t use them specifically, but he has several of them, and the application would not likely have occurred to him otherwise.
‘Say your child approaches mom for an ice cream bar at 4PM, clearly not ice cream time,’ he says. ‘Mom says no. Unperturbed; the child then approaches dad with the same question. Dad says no.’
Searching for someone to tickle her ears—tell her what she wants to hear—but so far, her search is unrewarded.
He continues: ‘But, if she can find a grandparent . . . ‘
Ah yes, in that case her search will pay off in spades.
The illustration is a favorite with his children and whenever he travels to give a public talk, they want to know if it is the one where he talks about the ice cream.
As for me, I many times used to explain that if they were to "not put up with the wholesome teaching, but according to their own desires, they will surround themselves with teachers to have their ears tickled” and the verse was written long ago, perhaps it also was fulfilled long ago. If so, that would account for how most church teachings are not found in the Bible, at least not straightforwardly. It is the attempt to read them in that causes people to tear out their hair in frustration.
****** The bookstore
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