New wine for new Wineskins

1. New Wine for New Wineskins - 24rd
February 2016
“ Andno one poursnew wineinto oldwineskins.Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins,and boththe
wine andthe wineskinswill be ruined.No, they pour new wine intonew wineskins.” (Mark2:22).
When we examine the life of Jesus, He was constantly challenging the status Quo of the
religious mindset of his day. He regularly had to correct people’s misconceptions of God, the
Messiah, the Scriptures, and even just plain living. In the above stated instance we see Jesus
tackling another misconception - that religious tradition is the proper measure for one’s
spirituality. To many people in Jesus’ day, and even today, holding to the traditions was of the
utmost importance - because in their eyes, tradition equaled spirituality. We can learn of this
instance in Matthew 9:14-15m “Then the followers of John the Baptist came to Jesus, asking,
"Why is it that we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples don’t fast at all?" 15 Jesus
answered, "Do you expect the guests at a wedding party to be sad as long as the bridegroom is
with them? Of course not! But the day will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from
them, and then they will fast”.
In the beginning of the passage, when John the Baptists followers asked Jesus as to why His
disciples did not fast, Jesus explains that he’s there referring to Himself as the bridegroom, the
Messiah, and while he’s there, there is no need for fasting. Then Jesus uses a couple of
metaphors to describe how tradition can become and had become a hindrance to the new
teachings that Jesus brought - a clear understanding of salvation and the kingdom of God. Jesus
spoke of this parable to bring more understanding by using common occurrences of everyday
life in Israel at the time, so that the people he was addressing would understand. We can learn
further in the same passage: “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the
patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. 17 Neither do people pour new
wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins
will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.” (Matthew
9:16 -17).
But just what does this mean for us today? How can we take this piece of Scripture and make it
live for us 2000 years after Jesus said it? The first thing we need to understand is that the "old
wine" and "old cloth" represent the old teaching that they followed. The old wineskins and old
cloth were made up of the legalistic religious systemthat required complete obedience to God
for acceptance by him and a home in heaven. One problem was that no one was capable of
complete obedience... Like old wineskins, the Pharisees and indeed the entire religious system
of Judaism had become too rigid to accept Jesus. They could not contain him or his message in
their traditions or rules. Their understanding of faithfulness to the law had become unsuitable
for the fresh, dynamic power of Christ’s message." As Christians today we need to thank God
for helping us avoid some of these misconceptions and that he is helping us to be people who
reflect the grace of Jesus rather than the legalismof the Pharisees. We can learn when the
apostle John states in John 1:17, “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came
through Jesus Christ”.

2. We can see examples of "Old Wine/Old Cloth" thinking that is prevalent in some main stream
churches today: They don’t want anything to change and continue the same way it was a 100
years ago. "Sorry but we’ve never done it that way before." This is similar to the Pharisees, who
were more concerned with keeping the status Quo of conforming to their standards and rules
than think with helping people find God. We can learn that for the Jews, the Ten
Commandments weren’t good enough. They added literally hundreds of laws to keep people in
line with how the leaders of the synagogue thought things should be done. But Jesus went after
them as we can learn in Mark 7:8," You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on
to human traditions.” Jesus stated that adhering to tradition for the sake of tradition was
actually a barrier for some coming to God. And the sad thing is, many churches are in that very
situation today. Breaking out of these patterns of thinking is hard to do, and only the brave are
willing to even consider.
The truth of the matter is that some of these archaic beliefs might not be working at all. We see
ourselves attracting new people that are just like us – as long as they fit in our wineskins very
nicely, not causing any ripples, and even helping us make sure none of the "new" wine invades.
And when this happens, we think everything’s working just fine. For some churches, prefer
doing the same things over and over again and they say: "Well, we’re being faithful." Faithful to
what? Our main objective should be being faithful to Jesus and to Christ’s instruction and thus
bring more people to him. Jesus wants more people to HIM, not simply more people to your
denomination or pattern of "doing church." We must remember always that Jesus Christ has
placed the responsibility of bringing as many people to Christ as possible.
We want our church to grow because every new person comes to you is because they need
Jesus, and needs what the family of God can bring to a person’s spiritual awareness. And if it
may mean adopting new methods to enhance His awareness by communicating Biblical truths...
then we need to do it. Today’s society is not the society of 50, 40, or even 10 years ago. With
time thinking changes and if the church is not willing to adopt, they will be left floundering.
We know that breaking out of old standard or patterns of thinking is hard to do, and only the
brave are willing to even consider it. But NOT willing to consider this is akin to telling Jesus, "No
thanks - we’re happy with our old wine and brittle wineskins, thank you very much." As we note
from the above parable about the new wineskins, it is not the attitude of Jesus. He said ; 17
Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine
will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and
both are preserved.” (Matthew 9:17). Therefore we need to avoid the legalistic clinging to
tradition for the sake of tradition and be open…not what some new preacher may say, but what
we can carefully learn from Jesus teaching found in the Gospels.