September 3, 2011 – Luke 5:17 – 6:11

The parable about the old and new cloth and wineskins has always puzzled me. I was thinking that this might have been a message to the Pharisees. The “old” leadership in the church did not want to hear Christ new message. They didn’t want to change the ways things were. They are the old cloth or wineskins. Trying to put the new teachings in them will make them burst. Much as the new teaching could not fit inside the old laws without both being ruined. Christ brought new teachings and new law. It was still God’s law, just as new cloth is still cloth, but it could not mesh with the old in a way so that both could exist together. Also, the part where those that are drinking old wine will not want the new is saying that those that are engrained in the new law will not want the new and will fight against it. That seems to make a lot more sense to me now. When you think about it that way, then think about the conflict in the early church about what parts of Judaism to keep in the new Christian church, you can see this parable played out even more. Trying to have both, or by trying to put the new wine in the old wineskin, would have ruined both. You had to get a new wineskin, those of the old way had to completely change their thinking. Any attempts to shape the new to fit in the old led to nothing.