New Wineskins

Any time you see a white person here in Tamale, they are inevitably carrying a large water bottle. As hot as it is here, you don't dare go far without pure water to drink or you'll fry. Water bottles are everywhere. In Jesus' day goat skins were used to carry water. They were also used for carrying other beverages, such as wine. Wine in these skins continued to ferment and expand, stretching the wineskins. If you happened to use an old wineskin to store new wine, the old wineskin would eventually burst. Jesus taught about this one day (Matt. 9:16-17), but he was making a deeper point than be careful with your wine.

Jesus compared the message he was bringing, which he called the "kingdom of God" to new wine. He tried to explain that the message he was bringing was such a radical departure from the legalistic rituals of Judaism in his day, that unless the people were prepared to be stretched, the "wine" would be spilled. The Jews of Jesus' day were trying to live by an impossible legal code; they thought that keeping this code and following certain religious rituals would make them right with God. Jesus was trying to show that the Jews' categories of religious experience could not contain the living God.

Unfortunately we in the Christian church today persist in this error of our spiritual forebears. We continually try to interpret new spiritual experience using old categories. We spend our days trying to put God in a box – we try to explain what he is doing, and yet God defies "boxing." I believe Jesus would tell us today that we must be open to the new things God is doing – we must be flexible and supple with our religious categories (wineskins). If not, we'll miss out on all the great things God has for us.

I'm speaking mainly to myself when I say this, but be prepared to be stretched. Discard those old categories and ways of thinking and be open to the new things God is doing. Relax and follow his lead; I'm confident he can do a much better job than we can.