This wasn’t just bad cooking! It was a case of bad practice—tossing in some mystery food!
At Elisha’s base of operations at Gilgal, he interacted with a school of the prophets. In this episode, another famine had gripped Israel, perhaps a judgment from the Lord. “Now the sons of the prophets were sitting before him,” likely hoping for a meal! So the gracious host instructed his servant, “Put on the large pot, and boil stew for the sons of the prophets” (v 38). It’s good to have large-pot faith, even in famine times. We’re told that an unnamed person wanted to help, so went looking for vegetables to add to the stew. He “found a wild vine, and gathered from it a lapful of wild gourds, and came and sliced them into the pot of stew, though [he] did not know what they were” (v 39). Strange, isn’t it? Even in times of famine, there’s always a bumper crop of poisonous gourds. Many today follow the same practice with their spiritual diet. The internet and pulpits are rife with wild gourds. Many have no idea what they’re feeding on. Sincere they may be, but the result is disastrous. That’s why good teaching in the New Testament is called “wholesome words” (1 Tim 6:3). The word “wholesome” is the Greek hygiain?. “Hygienic” means health-producing. We read, “it happened, as they were eating the stew, that they cried out and said, ‘Man of God, there is death in the pot!’” (2 Ki 4:40). Again Elisha comes to the rescue by adding something. “‘Then bring some flour.’ And he put it into the pot…And there was nothing harmful in the pot” (v 41). Flour, the chief ingredient of bread, speaks of Christ’s perfections. Almost all heresy misrepresents either His person or His work. John Newton wrote: “What think ye of Christ? is the test To try both your state and your scheme; You cannot be right in the rest, Unless you think rightly of Him.”