Whose Voice Are You Listening To?
Whose Voice Are You Listening To?
“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. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.”
2 Timothy 4:3-4
In today’s world, voices can be heard from almost anywhere. You can be in one country and hear a voice from halfway around the world in an instant. Through podcasts, social media, YouTube channels, and countless other platforms, voices are constantly telling us what to think, how to feel, what to believe, and how to live.
The impact of these voices can be felt around the world. We even have a common word for those who have gained the ability to influence others through these platforms: influencers.
These “influencers” offer all sorts of information. From the simple - how to bake bread, to the complex - medical conditions and scientific discoveries. We have an incredible amount of information available at our fingertips.
But there is One Voice that supersedes them all: the voice of Truth.
Scripture warns us that there will be voices that turn people away from sound doctrine and toward those who simply “tickle the ears.” Sadly, this is not a new struggle.
Acts 17:21 tells us, “All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.”
Does that sound familiar?
Today we even have a word for one way we consume an endless stream of information: doomscrolling. Merriam-Webster defines it as spending excessive time scrolling through online content, especially news, that makes us feel sad, anxious, angry, or distressed.
We can scroll and scroll, moving from one voice to another, one opinion to another, one crisis to another, until the voices around us become louder than the Voice within us.
So, whose voice are you listening to?
Our prayer for you at MissioCare Collective is that the voice of the Lord would be the voice you listen to most; that His Word would be where you turn for wisdom, truth, direction, and discernment.
The Apostle Paul prayed for the believers in Philippi:
“And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.”
Philippians 1:9–10
Discernment does not come simply from consuming more information. Discernment grows as we know God and become grounded in His Word.
As you listen to a Christian influencer or any influencer, podcast, teacher, author, or speaker, here are some questions to ask:
Does this person point me to Christ, or ultimately point me toward themselves?
Is Scripture the foundation of what they are teaching, or is Scripture simply being used to support their opinion?
How much time am I spending listening to this voice compared to spending time listening to God through His Word?
Does what they teach agree with the whole counsel of Scripture, or does it focus on isolated verses to make a point?
What is this voice producing in me? Am I growing in faith, wisdom, love, humility, and obedience, or am I becoming anxious, angry, fearful, prideful, or discontent?
Am I becoming more tethered to Christ, or more tethered to the influencer?
There will always be voices competing for our attention.
The question is not whether we will listen to voices. We will.
The question is: Which voice will have the greatest influence over us?
May we be people who know the difference between the many voices around us and the One Voice of Truth.
May we be so Tethered to the Word that when every other voice grows loud, we recognize the voice of our Shepherd.
“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”
John 10:27
-The MissioCare Collective Team