Itching Ears

A wise man is hungry for truth, while the mocker feeds on trash.
Proverbs 15:14 (Living Bible)

It never fails to puzzle me about how people who never spend time reading the Bible and have little (if any) knowledge about -- these same people are so quick to read, study, and talk about all these "lost" books that keep popping up. They won't spend a minute to read a chapter out of the Bible, but they will flock to read "the gospel of" Thomas, Judas, Mary, and any other extra-biblical twaddle they can get their hands on.

Gnosticism isn't anything new. It's roots date back to the book of acts when the Greeks were being introduced to the Gospel. The apostle John dedicated most of his writing to countering the mixing of Greek philosophy with Christianity.

The gnostic writings were written some 300 years after the time of Jesus and, unlike the Gospels, these books were not written by anyone with firsthand knowledge of Jesus. Ever since, they have cropped up from time to time. For a short time they become popular, sell a bunch of books, magazines and videos and then (because it is false and empty) it falls into obscurity again to wait for the next generation of gullible people.

In their wake, they plant seeds of doubt and unbelief in the hearts of those who are unestablished in God's Word and further harden the hearts of those who are looking for any excuse not to believe.

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
2 Timothy 4:3-4 (KJV)