I charge you in the presence of God and Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the Word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. 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, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.
2 Timothy 4:1-4
Gay marriage, acceptance of transgenderism, female pastors, spiritual but not religious, the Bible only contains the Word of God and is not the Word of God itself—these are only some of many teachings that some churches teach to satisfy the itching ears of apostates. What do we do against this? It is as simple as Paul’s charge: continue to reprove and rebuke those within our own congregations who believe such lies of the devil and exhort them to continue in the orthodox faith, which we are to do with patient teaching, not going on digital crusades to argue with every heretic on the internet. That means their repentance will not always come on the same day; most of the time, it will require patience as you continually teach them what God’s Word actually says about these matters and other things.
This is difficult, for it is easy to become upset that people are abandoning the truth for mythologies such as those described above. But how will they return to the truth of orthodoxy if we are not patient with them in our teaching? They may not want to hear it and shove us away. Fine, let them. Who has an ear that is willing to hear? Teach them. Yet even patiently teaching does not guarantee the truth will win them over. It is a rare thing. Oftentimes, a student I’ve never met will walk into my office on campus and ask what we believe about gender and sex issues. After patiently teaching him or her what we believe through the Law & Gospel paradigm, they kindly thank me for my time, and I never see them again. It is heartbreaking that they prefer to chase after mythologies.
Nonetheless, Paul’s charge is still there. If you have done your duty of patiently teaching, that is enough. “Well done, good and faithful servant,” our Lord will say. “You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:23).
The Lutheran Column 