Issue 1227 – Against the Flow – August 21, 2023
The window area of my office is packed with plants. It is a little green area that helps me do my thinking. Kathy teases me and calls it my jungle. The jungle motive is enhanced by the presence of my toy parrot/macaw, Polynesia, whom the grandkids and their friends love to borrow and play with.
A few other windows in our apartment also have plants, but my office has the most. Scattered amongst the various window gardens are some carnivorous plants. There are a couple of Venus flytraps and several species of butterwort. I’d like to add a small pitcher plant as well.
Carnivorous plants have always fascinated me, probably because they are not what you expect plants to be. After all, plants gain their nutrition from the soil; they don’t digest bugs. Yet, these plants are different; they eat insects to supplement the poor soils they grow in.
According to “Carnivorous Plants: Physiology, Ecology, and Evolution” by Ellison and Adamic,
Plants are considered carnivorous if they have these five traits:
- capture prey in traps
- kill the captured prey
- digest the captured prey
- absorb nutrients from the killed and digested prey
- use those nutrients to grow and develop.
More than 500 species of these plants have been catalogued, and they seem to find two or three more most years. More than a third of them are in danger of extinction.
Carnivorous plants are life forms that defy conventional thinking.
When something defies convention, it often warrants closer examination. It may or may not be true, and your ideas may be changed or strengthened by reexamination. Learning comes through challenging our perceptions and beliefs.
That’s why I read scholars and authors I disagree with. Whether my mind is changed or not, I often see something from a fresh perspective and gain insights. I have to consider what I know and why I know it to engage a different perspective. If you don’t know those things, to begin with, how can you evaluate the claims of others?
How do you know that what the sincere Mormon missionaries of Jehovah’s Witnesses are trying to “teach you” from the Bible is wrong? They do really well in recruiting people who think they know something about the Bible but don’t really.
There are plenty of weird ideas out there about Christianity and the Bible. We need to be grounded in the truth and able to handle the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. (Ephesians 6:17b)
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Hebrews 4:12
Using a sword that we are not familiar with can be dangerous. We are more likely to cut ourselves or break something than to use it effectively.
We gain familiarity with the word by reading it, studying it (alone and in community) and listening to good teaching.
In a world hostile to what we believe and full of ideas that go against the flow of Christ and His church, may you learn to handle the sword well.
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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Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture is from the English Standard Version (ESV).
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