A New Wineskin

[reba]

God has only ever given us one way of obtaining forgiveness - the shedding of innocent blood. Hebrews 9:22 tells us that there is no forgiveness without the shedding of blood. In the Old Testament, it was the blood of lambs, goats and bulls, through which God, in His grace, offered people forgiveness. Those sacrifices all pointed toward Christ. In the New Testament, God shows us His grace by offering us forgiveness through the blood of Jesus. Only the sacrifice has changed. God's grace and the actual method of redemption remain the same.

The TOG​

 

[Sparkey]

You are the wineskin.

You, in the past, have been used to hold the corruptible. That deformed you. We are being changed in the inner man so that we may hold the incorruptible. This requires a new you. We are to die to self. What happens when new wine is put into an old wineskin? That is a very clear warning, one that is too often mistaken and covered with false grace. God does not want us to hurt ourselves or others. He does want us to do good and to be holy for He is Holy.

The work of God is to believe on the One He sent: To show the result in our lives.

 

[Edward]

You are the wineskin.

You, in the past, have been used to hold the corruptible. That deformed you. We are being changed in the inner man so that we may hold the incorruptible. This requires a new you. We are to die to self. What happens when new wine is put into an old wineskin? That is a very clear warning, one that is too often mistaken and covered with false grace. God does not want us to hurt ourselves or others. He does want us to do good and to be holy for He is Holy.

The work of God is to believe on the One He sent: To show the result in our lives.

This makes perfect sense to me brother. The renewing must take place. I believe the new heart is there, but that we have to begin our learning once again as a child. Then over time, we learn, grow, and are sanctified. Ours is to read, pray and learn, to supplant the old man and ideals with the new ones. We...walk in it, practice it, live it. Be ye therefore Holy, even as I am Holy...exactly.

 

[Deborah13]

That's not what I said. I believe Jesus didn't teach or do anything that was contrary to what God had already revealed in the Hebrew scriptures. To my mind, the idea that Jesus was doing away with God's revelations up to that point to bring in something new just won't work. The Pharisees had their own, often incorrect, interpretation of the scriptures, and Jesus was going to teach the correct interpretation, not do away with it. It was easier to teach people who didn't have preconceived ideas to start with. That way, he didn't have to "un-teach" them first.

The TOG​

Sorry TOG, when I said similar I did not mean the same. This is what I thought you were saying.

You said the old could not learn the new.
I said the old could not tolerate the new.

In your case, the old would not receive the new because they were too set in their ways to learn it.
In my case, the old would not receive the new because they were too set in their ways to tolerate it.

 

[TOG]

I apologize if I misunderstood, but I still think you're misunderstanding me. I'm not talking about the Old Covenant vs. the New Covenant, but about different interpretations of the same covenant. Let me try to explain with an example. The law forbids working on the Sabbath. Back in Old Testament times, just as it is today, people wanted someone else to do their thinking for them, so they asked their rabbis "what's work?", and the Pharisees came up with 39 classes of activities that they considered to be work. Among them were harvesting, threshing and winnowing. But that still left too much thinking up to the people themselves, so they asked for a definition of those things. The Pharisees came up with the definition that doing any of those things to 3 or more grains (or grapes, figs, etc.) counted as the applicable activity and was therefore work. One day, Jesus and his disciples were going through a wheat field and picking grains, rubbing them in their hands to separate the grain from the chafe and blowing the chafe away. The Pharisees saw this and, since they were doing it to more than 3 grains, they considered it work and criticized them for it. Jesus told them that their interpretation conflicted with the purpose of the law and showed them the correct understanding of the law.

If Jesus had chosen Pharisees who had already learned these interpretations, he would have had to get them to "unlearn" them first, before he could teach them the correct interpretations. It was much easier to pick disciples that had no education in the law, so he could work with "blank parchments" and they would accept the correct interpretation from the beginning. He was showing the correct interpretation, not doing away with "the old" to make way for "the new".

The TOG​

 

[Deborah13]

I apologize if I misunderstood, but I still think you're misunderstanding me. I'm not talking about the Old Covenant vs. the New Covenant, but about different interpretations of the same covenant. Let me try to explain with an example. The law forbids working on the Sabbath. Back in Old Testament times, just as it is today, people wanted someone else to do their thinking for them, so they asked their rabbis "what's work?", and the Pharisees came up with 39 classes of activities that they considered to be work. Among them were harvesting, threshing and winnowing. But that still left too much thinking up to the people themselves, so they asked for a definition of those things. The Pharisees came up with the definition that doing any of those things to 3 or more grains (or grapes, figs, etc.) counted as the applicable activity and was therefore work. One day, Jesus and his disciples were going through a wheat field and picking grains, rubbing them in their hands to separate the grain from the chafe and blowing the chafe away. The Pharisees saw this and, since they were doing it to more than 3 grains, they considered it work and criticized them for it. Jesus told them that their interpretation conflicted with the purpose of the law and showed them the correct understanding of the law.

If Jesus had chosen Pharisees who had already learned these interpretations, he would have had to get them to "unlearn" them first, before he could teach them the correct interpretations. It was much easier to pick disciples that had no education in the law, so he could work with "blank parchments" and they would accept the correct interpretation from the beginning. He was showing the correct interpretation, not doing away with "the old" to make way for "the new".

The TOG​

 

[Rollo Tamasi]

 

[Rollo Tamasi]

 

[Deborah13]

You're a nut.

 

[Rollo Tamasi]

You're a nut.

That's inflammatory.
I think you need a drink off of my faucet.

 

[Not_Now.Soon]

With Luke 5:39 though saying the old is better kind of brings to mind two other thoughts about the old wine verses the new wine. In wine like other alcoholic beverages, being older brings in more appreciated taste, after having fermented for longer. With people as well as with ideas, an older idea is more thought out, and it seems more stable, or possibly more right because of that. An older person has more character and stories that can hold a people to like them. Where as a new idea usually has a lot to figure out, how it fits into place, and interacts with the world. And a newborn person like the new idea has a lot to learn before he or she can walk, crawl, or even sit without any help. Not even to mention talking.

That said, I've kind of always thought the new wine and wine skin was in comparison to the traditions, culture and laws of the time that made up the Isreal culture and Jewish religion. At that time everything Jesus brought forth was so new and separated from the old. What he brought was not going to fit into the old wineskin. I kind of thought the new verses old was in context to that time when Jesus said it. Now a days though, Christianity has had many years to develope on what Jesus said. It is defiantly still applicable with the context of being seperate from Judaism. But I like the ideas that the wineskin is not just the new covenant, but also a new person, a new creation. Thanks guys for that perspective.

 

[Blake]

It's similar to this old Zen proverb:

A layman went to visit an elder one day in his home. The young layman knocked on the door, and the elder replied from the other side, "Who is it?" The young man replied "Master, I've come to seek knowledge." The elder allowed him inside and asked him to sit down for tea.

Without missing a beat, the young man sat down and began to fill the air with a lot of philosophical talk. The elder smiled and nodded as he went along, brewing his tea. Shortly after, he brought two cups and the tea to the table and sat down, placing a cup in front of himself and in front of the young man, and he slowly began to pour, as the young man continued to air his speculations.

The elder retained his smile as he poured and poured, until the young man's cup was overflowing. The young man was shocked. "I've come to YOU to learn? You mad old man, you can't even fill a cup of tea!"

The old man nodded his head. "I can fill your cup, but I cannot fill a cup that is already full. Only when your cup is empty can it be filled."

The moral: If you are full of self-knowledge and convinced of your own way of thinking, no one can teach you anything new.