By now, most of the mosquitos have been squashed for the season and we shouldn’t have too many more problems with them. Over the last couple of years, we have been very fortunate and haven’t had the issues with them as we’ve had in the past. Still, it only takes one mosquito bite to drive you a little bit crazy.
How can such a tiny bug cause so much itching?
First, we must understand that it is only the females that bite. Hold the jokes, please. This little lady has an admirable reason for what she is doing. Our rich blood provides the nourishment for her eggs to develop which she will lay in nutrient rich water. If you think about it, this is just a mother protecting her young.
Her proboscis, the blood sucking mouth, is a marvel! Six tiny needles or lancets are sheathed in a protective labium. As it pierces our skin, the two outer needles have little saw tooths that help her saw through our skin. The next two help to hold our skin apart. Then, with one of the remaining needles, she searches for a blood vessel to tap. Once it is found, the needle acts as a straw, sucking our blood into her body. With the last needle, she injects her saliva which contains an anticoagulant to keep our blood flowing freely so that it doesn’t clog the straw.
Unfortunately, the mosquito’s saliva also leaves behind viruses and parasites. The bite can transmit West Nile virus, malaria, several forms of encephalitis, and many other diseases. According to an NPR video, no other bite kills more people or makes more people sick than the mosquito.1
So, what causes the itching?
Our body reacts to this assault by sending out “histamines, which make the blood vessels around the mosquito bite swell and create a “wheal” on the skin. That wheal is the bump that is so often referred to as a mosquito “bite.” All that swelling often disturbs nearby nerves, which then react by making your skin itch.”2
And, boy, does it itch! Even though we know we aren’t supposed to, we scratch, scratch, and scratch some more. Have you ever noticed that the more you scratch, the itchier it becomes? Well, mosquito bites aren’t the only things that create an itch needing to be scratched.
Paul challenges Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:1-4, “I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; (2) Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. (3) 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; (4) And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.”
One Bible commentator writes, “Professing Christians and nominal believers in the
church follow their own desires and flock to preachers who offer them God’s blessings apart from His forgiveness…They have an itch to be entertained by teachings that will produce pleasant sensations and leave them with good feelings about themselves.”3
The Believer’s Bible Commentary writes, “The apostle foresees a time when people will show a positive distaste for health-giving teaching. They will willfully turn away from those who teach the truth of God’s word. Their ears will itch for doctrines that are pleasing and comfortable. To satisfy their lust for novel and gratifying doctrine, they will accumulate a group of teachers who will tell them what they want to hear.”
This itch for weak, shallow, entertaining teaching needs to be scratched and there are plenty of charlatan preachers willing to scratch it.
To keep from getting bitten, the best way is to stay out of the places where mosquitos thrive and swarm. Titus 3:9 says, “But avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain.” And 1 Timothy 1:4 says, “Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: so do.” The best way to not get bitten is to not be where the bugs are!
We also can use bug repellant to keep the mosquitos away. God gives us plenty of spiritual bug repellant and we need to apply it liberally today. It’s found in Colossians 3:16. “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”
1https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/06/07/480653821/watch-mosquitoes-use-6-needles-to-suck-your-blood
2https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/64950/why-do-mosquito-bites-itch-so-much
3MacArthur Bible Commentary.
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