Issue #885 – Indian Pipe – October 17, 2022
Some Indian pipe (also known as ghost plant or ghost pipe), Monotropa uniflora, spotted in the local woods. While it appears to be some form of fungus, the pipe is actually a herbaceous perennial plant related to the rhododendron. These pipes are in full bloom.
Apparently, these pipes are sometimes found bright red, but I have only ever seen the ghost plants. The pipe plants are unusual looking but have a beauty all their own.
A Monotropa uniflora plant contains no chlorophyll as it does not generate its food directly from the soil. It is a mycoheterotroph that feeds on the mycelium of fungus that feeds off trees. It is a parasitic plant feeding on the nutrients generated by another parasite.
In God’s infinite wisdom, he has created many things that appear to be one thing but turn out to be another. For a long time, ghost pipes were considered fungi based on their lack of chlorophyll. Then, it was thought they feed directly off the soil they grew in. It was only relatively recently that their true nature was discovered.
A similar thing can happen in the church as well. Someone in a leadership position can often give off all the appearance of being a shepherd but turns out to be a wolf or a hireling.
I believe that most people in church leadership or pastoral roles are called to those roles and do their best to fulfill them. Still, we need to be vigilant.
I charge you in the presence of God and of 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
Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. Acts 20:28-30
While those verses were written to church leaders, they contain a warning we all should heed.
How do we avoid falling prey to these false teachers?
We need to know what we believe and why we believe it. We need to be like the Bereans and search the Scriptures carefully.
John, the apostle, tells us.
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
1 John 4:1-6
The Sunday sermon is an essential time of teaching and encouragement. We need to hear it weekly, but we must not let it be our only source of biblical and theological knowledge. God’s Word is preparing us to live our lives in preparation for eternity; what it says matters.
Thank the Lord for the godly men and women who strive to take us deeper into the word and pull us closer to the Lord. Be alert for those with a differing agenda.
Be blessed
Hallelu Yah / Praise God
Kevin
Gleanings From The Word
Experience an extraordinary God in ordinary life.
Soli Deo Gloria (For the glory of God alone)
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