The plant above is Butterfly Weed, a cousin of Milkweed. I put in a late order at the Growers Exchange for Little Joe Pye Weed for the Military Gardening Group, and found Joe Pye Weed available in the large, economy size and the compact size. Little Joe Pye is ideal for people who do not want a nine foot tall monster overshadowing the other flowers. That may not happen the first year or second, but the third year gets the honors for being a champion.
I mentioned Joe Pye Senior and Junior being available because Milkweed was sold out again. The gardeners who want Monarch butterflies always buy up the Milkweed plants early.
I can easily spot the distinctive greens of Joe Pye Senior and Junior, but both could be any old weed when starting out - and quite fragile.
Many weeds have sprung up on their own, and they give away their nature early, with peculiar leaves. I do not remember every name, but one weeds produces plenty of seeds while growing through the root system to become a colony of pests and launching area for even more weeds, wherever the wind takes them. My soil is rich clay teeming with fungi, earthworms, and organic matter - ideal for weeds.
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| Joe Pye Weed |
Sound Doctrine and False Doctrine
Doctrine follows the same path when we compare desirable plants to weeds. False doctrine is similar to sound doctrine, especially at the beginning. The false teachers of WELS-LCMS-ELS-ELCA-CLC always begin with - "We just want to try something, a little experiment. We are few and very weak, so we are no threat."
Soon the false teachers want equal rights, because so many of them have formed into groups, circles, and assassination teams. They cannot be criticized even though they gain traction by harshly attacking sound doctrine and mocking the old fuddy-duddies.
The Lutheran synods did this by aping -
- The Roman Catholics
- The Calvinist Church Growth gurus
- The Ecumenical Movement
- The Pentecostals
- The German Rationalists
- The secular, professional money raisers.
Now they are in complete control - from Bishop Liz Eaton in ELCA on down to Mark Schroeder - and worse.
Now that they dominate, they prowl their precincts looking for whom they can devour.
1 Peter 5:8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: 9 Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.
Discernment, testing the spirits, comes from studying the effective Word of God.
2 Timothy 2:16 But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness. 17 And their word will eat as doth a canker (cancer or gangrene): of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus;
Paul's stern admonition at the end of Romans is "Examine and avoid" - not "Register, attend, and parrot..."
Romans 16:17 Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. 18 For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.
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| Crab grass came over as a grain plant. |
Weeds Have Value
Many easily identified weeds have value in loosening and improving the soil. As I wrote before, we had a thick patch of crabgrass in the area now devoted to the Butterfly Garden - the sunniest and most fertile area of the front and back yards. Instead of pulling and cursing the crabgrass, I blocked the sun with cardboard and wood mulch. The leaves and roots decomposed into rich compost.
False doctrine has value too, in causing division. That must happen, to separate the good from the bad, the sound doctrine from the false doctrine. The timidity of the synod leaders proves that they are captive to false doctrine, not only unChristian but anti-Christian, not only unLutheran but anti-Luther to a fault.
1 Corinthians 11:18 For first of all, when ye come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you; and I partly believe it. 19 For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.
