English reader with something of the emphasis that the reader of the original gathered as he pondered the warning

concerning `giving heed' with which the apostasy starts, and the `intolerance' with which it ends.

The passage `They heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears', could mean, to the English reader, that the

teachers were the ones that had the itching ear, and this ambiguity is rectified in the R.V.. Moffatt gives a vigorous

and suggestive rendering of the passage:

`Keep at it in season and out of season, refuting, checking, and exhorting men; never lose patience with them,

and never give up your teaching, for the time will come when people will decline to be taught sound doctrine and

will accumulate teachers to suit themselves and tickle their own fancies; they will give up listening to the Truth and

turn to myths' (2 Tim. 4:2-4).

The figure of the itching ear was known to Timothy, as it is found in Greek writers before the days of the

apostle. It denotes among other things a desire for something pleasant at all costs, a shirking of responsibility and a

shelving of troublesome truth. There will be no dearth apparently of teachers in the last days, who will satisfy this

craving, and the main basis will be the opposite of the musterion (mystery), it will be the muthos (the myth or fable)

.

Modern civilization has made it necessary that all along the roads both in town and country there should be

erected signs, warning and directing the traveller. Some of these signs are long distance warnings, e.g. telling a

lorry driver that some miles ahead is a bridge only fifteen feet high, others are immediate and are at our very door.

These warnings and signs may be used as symbols of the Signs of the Times. Long distance signs are those of

Matthew 24, the movements now taking place in Palestine and among the Nations. The more immediate signs

include the notice `Beware' found in Colossians 2, and the warning concerning apostasy in 1 and 2 Timothy which

we have had before our notice in these articles.

The testimony of The Berean Expositor is such that it cannot afford either the space or the time to elaborate

those long distance signs that belong to the dispensation that will immediately follow the close of that of the

mystery, but it does fall within our responsibility to draw the reader's most serious attention to the warnings that are

found in Paul's later epistles, for such belong to our calling, to our peace and to our hope of reward.