Generation of “itching ears”

This article was recently published in the New Zealand Challenge Weekly Newspaper and can also be found online at the Challenge Weekly website. The article is a follow up to our Impact Bible Conference where Dr Ken Ramey was a keynote speaker.

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In part one of an interview with reporter Michael Hamilton, American pastor and teacher Ken Ramey discusses the Bible, his concerns about the Church in the Western World, and evangelism.


Mr Ramey is a pastor and teacher at Lakeside Bible Church, in Montgomery, Texas. Following study at The Master’s College for theological training and obtaining a Bachelor’s Degree in Youth Ministry, he got his Master of Divinity from The Master’s Seminary.

He served for many years as a high school chaplain, and then as a professor of youth ministry at The Master’s College. He completed a Doctor of Ministry degree in Expository Preaching, and is author of the book Expository Listening: A Practical Handbook for Hearing and Doing God’s Word.

A major concern Mr Ramey has is with issues concerning the Church in the western world today, matters he says it is important to deal with.

“If I look out on the landscape of the western church, I would say we live in that generation that Paul talked about, the generation of the itching ears.

“What we have is this consumerism in the Church where people are coming to Church, not to hear what God has to say to them from his Word, but wanting to hear what they want to hear that makes them feel good, and strokes them and encourages them and basically even justifies their life of sin.

“So what you have is almost this supply and demand going on in the church today where you have all this demand for ear-tickling sermons which creates this supply of preachers who are willing to cater to people’s desire and whims.

“You’ve got many pastors who have really, I think, forsaken their God-given duty which is to faithfully, clearly, accurately explain and apply the Bible; to be God’s mouth-piece; to be a hero for God.”

Mr Ramey said true biblical preaching is not being done in many churches these days. “Biblical preaching has become almost extinct in the Church today and it’s very hard for you to go anywhere and find good, strong biblical preaching; and if I hear any concern or frustration in committed Christians today, it is we can’t find a good church to go to that is faithful to teach the Scriptures.”

He said in too many churches, the pastor just “wants to give a kind of feel-good sermon and a bunch of stories and jokes. But they aren’t feeding people’s souls. There is, as Isaiah talks about, a famine for the Word of God.”

This was partly, he felt, due to too many people being lovers of themselves, and so happily attending such churches.

The duty of churches and Christians to spread the Good News does not fare well either. “I think that generally speaking, the Church has failed in its responsibility and I think many believers are not being good faithful witnesses; it’s because the Church doesn’t train people and equip them, and basically the common method in churches today is that evangelism is done by holding events: event evangelism where you must do an event, or a crusade, or concert. Let’s try to draw people in and give a Gospel presentation,” said Mr Ramey.

“What we need to understand is Acts 1:8; Jesus said ‘You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and to the outermost part of the earth’. What that meant was if you’re a Christian you’re a witness. The question is — are you a good one or a bad one?”

Mr Ramey said the Church existed to equip the believers in Christ to do the work of Christian ministry or service, so the people came together to be equipped, and then left to scatter to evangelise like the early church at the time of Acts.

The people then went out and did evangelism in homes, in workplaces, in the neighbourhood, on the sports field, where the church members were interacting with non-believers every week. “I think the greatest impact we can make in our culture is to be different from our culture. Unfortunately, that’s the way the church thinks today as the exact opposite — that is, we need to become like the world and if we become like the world we’ll reach the world, because if we become like them, then they’ll like us. And if they like us, they’ll like Jesus. This doesn’t make any sense.

“What needs to be attractive to non-believers is the fact that we’re totally different. That’s what it says in 1 Corinthians 14, when a non-believer comes into the fellowship of the Church and they’re just blown away because they’ve never seen anything like this before, so they go, they think ‘this is kind of like a coffee shop. I feel comfortable here and it’s casual’. Well, that’s not going to make an impact on that person’s life. They need to come in and say, ‘Wow, I’ve never experienced anything like this before”.

“I don’t think the way Christians influence the culture is by getting elected to high positions of authority, or by passing laws in Government.
The way that a culture or society or country is changed, is not by changing leadership, or changing laws — but by changing lives.”