Daily Devotional
New Wine In Old Cup
Text:Mark 2:22
“No one puts new wine into old wineskins”
Message
New wine in old bottles in British English means
something new added to or imposed upon an old or established order.
While new wine can be put in old bottles, however, an old bottle will not stretch, yield, and respond to the gas pressure developed by the fermenting wine. Because the old bottle will not stretch, it will just explode. Then, both the bottle and wine are lost. Therefore, new wine needs to be put into new bottles.
This understanding made Jesus say, “No one puts new wine into old wineskins” (Mark 2:22).
When a wineskin gets old, the leather hardens. If you put new wine in it, the wine expands and bursts it.
Jesus is saying, “You can’t have a new life with old thinking.” If you think you’ve reached your limits, then you have.
In Jesus’s day, people used animal skins-like goatskin-for storing liquids. Fermented drinks like wine expanded, and since an old wineskin would already be stretched to its limit, the new wine would tear the seams. This is why new wine needed to be preserved in new wineskins.
Jesus uses the metarphor of new wine and old skins to illustrate why He does not lead His disciples to follow the religion of the Pharisees, specifically in fasting.
Old wineskins, like the Pharisees’ rules, are brittle and inflexible. When filled with “new wine,” the skins are likely to break apart.
“Old wine in new bottles” means that an already existing idea or establishment is offered as if it were a new one.
Other Interpreters of the Torah observing community would state that this new skin represents a new body as we die to our old self, and then we see the new wine symbolises a new spirit, which is the spirit of God in us, the new wine into a new body, could also be seen as the resurrection into a new body.
We have already seen several examples of this interpretation, that is, to see the old wine and old wineskins as representing Judaism and the new garment and new wine as representing Jesus’ kingdom.
The spiritual meaning of wine here is often literally understood to represent the resurrection of Jesus Christ – in the sense that ‘dead’ grapes do not decay, but instead ferment and are filled with a new ‘spirit’ that helps them live again.
In sum, we are today encouraged not to be too settled as to be indifferent to the gospel message. Tomorrow may be too late.
May God help us to obey in Jesus name.