Know Your Mushrooms

LISTEN TO AUDIO

I love mushrooms, all kinds: Button mushrooms, Portobello mushrooms, Porcini mushrooms, you name it. In Missouri, where I live, there is even a variety of wild mushrooms called Morrells that, under the right circumstances, can be found in the woods. But why would I want to go traipsing through the woods or pay good money at the store when, often times, in my own front yard when I can get a crop of huge beautiful white mushrooms for free? I’ll tell you why- those big fluffy mushrooms that pop on the lawn will kill a person. They are highly poisonous. And while they look delicious to the untrained observer, they are in fact deadly.

Here is the apostle Paul on the subject of knowing your “mushrooms”.
1 Tim 4:1-3 “Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.”

Like mushrooms, teaching about God word and His ways needs to be approached cautiously and with a trained eye. Not everything that comes from a pulpit is good and healthy. Paul speaks of a time when deception, false teaching and legalism will spring up like toad stools in the front yard and we had better know our facts if we are going to keep from getting sick.

Listen folks, we must read our bibles. Keep the main things the plain things and the plain things the main things. Don’t major in the minors. The things that Jesus did and talked about- do and talk about those things yourself. Get to know the words and the ways of Christ so well, get to know the genuine article so completely, that false truth stands out like an elephant at a sheep farm. Become a student of Christ and the simplicity of His message because not everything that grows in the yard is good for a salad.