Old and New
In Matthew chapter 9 Jesus spoke to the Pharisees about the difference between traditional Judaism and the practices of his disciples. In verses 16 & 17 he gives two illustrations:
1. New cloth used to patch an old garment. New cloth would shrink the first time it was washed whilst the old cloth would have already shrunk. The end result would have been a garment worse off than before the patch.
2. New wine needed to be put into new wineskins because the old wineskins aged with the wine. Again the result of mixing the old with the new was disaster.
The Church was new cloth and new wine – something radically different from anything that had gone before. It wouldn’t fit into the old practises or the old rules – it would only have torn it apart.
But the same holds true for local fellowships. Each local church grows up very quickly into set ways and practises. It is all too easy to slip into Christianised Phariseeism. To try and change the ways and practises in such a church would tear it apart, just like the patched garment. Perhaps this is God’s way of keeping his Church fresh and dynamic. We need to beware of keeping institutions alive rather than the Church itself.
When God calls us to do something new it needs to happen in a new place. A new garment for a new thing. This doesn’t mean the old is intrinsically bad, just different, like a piece from a different jigsaw.
God is always doing new things; we need to be aware of how he works and willing to move in the way God wants us to. If that involves new wine, then we need to ask God to show us the new wineskin too.