New Wine!

I've read, many times, the comments Jesus made about not putting new wine into old wineskins. It's found in three of the gospels - so one would think it was quite significant! (Matthew 9:14-17, Mark 2:18-22 and Luke 5:33-39)

I've understood the physics behind it - how fermenting wine increases the pressure inside the container as its gases are released - and that old wineskins will tear under this stress, where new wineskins will give and expand. But I couldn't quite figure out how that applied to us! Afterall - all of Jesus' points were to teach us something important needed in our lives. But today - thanks to The Chosen - it clicked!

Jesus was bringing a new way of understanding God, and it was not able to be received in the immoveable structure that was the "church" of the day! Nor could he use the religious teachers of the day - they were already rigidly incorporated into that system! He had to start fresh - with those willing to absorb and learn - not already wise in their own eyes! And he had to build a new "church" outside of the currently, well- established and accepted one! The original system could not sustain it.

We need to have faith that is new and living and growing! And we need to be a part of a "system" that will accept change and grow with it! If the "system" we belong to is too rigid and unwilling to be used this way, this faith will become old - comforting and tasty maybe - but dead.

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