Some of us are guilty of finding the teacher who lines up with our current beliefs or traditions. This should not be the case. We should want to hear the meat of the Word. Sometimes the “meat of the Word” will be hard to swallow, but nonetheless we should accept, meditate, and apply such wisdom into our lives. After all, He is trying to teach us His ways (love); in the end, allowing His word to take root will benefit us greatly. If we just listen to what “we want to hear””when we want to hear it” we will never grow; sometimes the person or the truth that is difficult to hear is the very truth that will set us free.
2 Timothy 4:2–4 (ESV)2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. 3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.
Mark 7:9 (ESV)9 And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition!
Mark 7:13–15 (ESV)13 thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.” 14 And he called the people to him again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand: 15 There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.”
John 8:31–32 (ESV)31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
John 17:17 (ESV)17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.