What are the ‘new wineskins’?
In all three Synoptic gospels, Jesus concludes a conversation about the contrast betwixt his instruction and practice and that of the Pharisees (and John the Baptist) by means of a parable most wine and wineskins.
No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an former garment, for the patch will pull abroad from the garment, making the tear worse. Neither exercise people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out, and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved. (Matt. 9:16–17)
No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an erstwhile garment. If they do, the new slice volition pull abroad from the onetime, making the tear worse. And people do not pour new wine into onetime wineskins. If they do, the wine volition burst the skins, and both the vino and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins. (Mark 2.21–22)
No one tears a piece out of a new garment to patch an old one. If they exercise, they volition accept torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the erstwhile. And people do not cascade new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the new vino will flare-up the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. And none of you, after drinking quondam vino, wants the new, for you say, 'The erstwhile is amend.' (Luke 5.36–39)
The reference of the two parables is fairly straightforward. In most cultures, cloth shrinks when it is washed, and information technology you put an unprewashed piece of material onto textile that has already shrunk, when information technology is washed it will itself shrink and tear a hole. Partially fermented vino (the 'must') was stored in wineskins, but as the fermentation procedure continued, it produced more gases and and so stretched the wineskin which was made from the hibernate of a caprine animal. An old skin which was no longer elastic could not stretch for this new wine, so you needed to use new skins for the current years' wine production. As with most of Jesus' parables, the information that information technology drew on was relatively mundane. But what is its significance? What is Jesus referring to?
The nearly common interpretation of this is the Jesus is showing the superiority of his teaching, and rejecting the Pharisees' approach to faith—and more than broadly, establishing the grounds for the rejection of Jewish belief and practice and the establishment of a new religion of Christianity. Hither is a typical expression of such a view:
This, then, is the meaning of Jesus' parables of the patched garment and the wineskins: the gospel of the Kingdom which Jesus brings cannot be fitted into the the Pharisees' paradigm or way of living, for "by a mongrel mixture of the austere ritualism of the old with the spiritual freedom of the new economy, both are disfigured and destroyed".
This was the apply made of the parable past Marcion to establish a consummate separation betwixt 'the religion of Jesus and Paul' and the belief taught in the Hebrew Scriptures, which Marcion himself rejected along with about of the New Testament except Luke'southward gospel. Information technology has been used more recently to justify the establishment of new 'churches', since the new thing God is doing cannot be contained within the structures of the existing churches, which are non flexible enough to contain this new wine.
There are a number of bug with this mode of understanding the parable. The first is Jesus' general mental attitude to the Pharisees and the police. For one, Jesus at points appears to have no problem with theinstruction of the Pharisees; information technology is their lack of living it out that he has a problem with (Matt 23.1–iv). In other words, information technology is not that they are also 'Jewish' that bothers him—information technology is that they are not 'Jewish' enough. This fits with his wider attitude to the law: it might need reinterpretation in the calorie-free of his own ministry building (and ultimately in the low-cal of his death and resurrection, on which run across Luke 24), merely he has not come up to 'do away with information technology' (Matt 5.17).
The second major trouble is the language of the saying itself—at to the lowest degree in Luke's version. Marking's saying draws an absolute contrast past which nosotros might think 'new good; old bad'. Matthew introduces a hint of ambiguity; when he comments 'both are preserved' is he hinting that both onetime wine/skins and new vino/skins are kept? If so, this is fabricated more explicit in Luke: people prefer the old wine, so perhaps the new is for a different purpose. In his NIC Commentary, Joel Green locates this in Luke's emphasis on the rooting of this new movement within the expectations of Judaism.
The burden of the birth narrative, the genealogy, the temptation account, and the countdown sermon in Nazareth (i.east. the greater part of Luke i.5–4.13) is that Jesus is doing zero more than bringing to fruition the aboriginal purpose of God. (p 250)
Matthew reinforces this idea explicit in his unique saying of Jesus, which he perchance sees as autobiographical:
Therefore every teacher of the police force who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a business firm who brings out of his storeroom new treasures likewise as onetime. (Matt xiii.52)
But the major problem with this 'new structures/religion' interpretation comes from the setting of the passage within its narrative context. In all 3 gospels, the parable follows the aforementioned sequence of conflict stories, though Matthew varies the stories that come after it:
| Matt 9 | Marker two | Luke 5 |
| Healing the paralytic | Healing the paralytic | Healing the paralytic |
| Dinner at Levi'southward firm | Dinner at Levi's house | Dinner at Levi's firm |
| The question about fasting | The question about fasting | The question about fasting |
| Cloth and garment | Fabric and garment | Material and garment |
| Wine and wineskins | Wine and wineskins | Wine and wineskins |
| Synagogue leader's daughter | Grainfields on the Sabbath | Grainfields on the Sabbath |
| Woman with upshot of blood | Healing on the Sabbath | Healing on the Sabbath |
(Note that, every bit ever, Luke and Matthew never hold against Marker, which is a cardinal argument for Marcan priority.) So the parable needs to be read in the context of these stories, and in particular the instruction about fasting. The argument I mentioned in a higher place continues thus:
These parables came in response to the Pharisees' question well-nigh Jesus' practice of fasting compared to their own and John the Baptist'south. Hence this parable too apparently applies to John the Baptist'due south asceticism, which Jesus seemed to view as good but passing away, since it was part of the Old Covenant which he was fulfilling and renewing.
The problem hither is that this exclamation completely ignores Jesus' bodily teaching about fasting: 'But the time will come up when the bridegroom will be taken from them; in those days they volition fast' (Luke 5.34). This is supported past the Didache, and by the educational activity of Christian leaders down the centuries (Wesley is a skilful example). In other words, Jesus isnot rejecting 'the Pharisees' paradigm or way of living' in any simple way since he assumes that his followers will indeed revert to this pattern one time he has gone.
Then if the parable is non most newstructures, what is it about? An intriguing insight comes from the education of Elisha ben Abuyah (a virtually contemporary of Jesus) as recorded in the Talmud.
He who studies as a child, unto what tin he exist compared? He can be compared to ink written upon a fresh [new] sheet of paper. Only he who studies as an adult, unto what can he be compared? He can be compared to ink written on a smudged [previously used and erased] sheet of paper. Rabbi Yose ben Yehudah of the city of Babylon said, "He who learns from the young, unto what can he exist compared? He tin can be compared to one who eats unripe grapes, and drinks unfermented wine from his vat. Just he who learns from the old, unto what can he be compared? He can be compared to 1 who eats ripe grapes, and drinks old vino. Rabbi (Meir) said: Do non pay attention to the container but pay attention to that which is in information technology. There is a new container total of sometime wine, and here is an old container which does not fifty-fifty contain new wine. (Pirkei Avot 4)
This offers a hitting parallel not only to the parable just to Matthew'due south comment well-nigh 'treasures old and new'. And it makes common sense likewise. After all, what functions as the 'container' for Jesus' teaching—religious structures or religious people, in particular, his disciples?
In other words, the parable is not about creating new structures or institutions (which surely themselves, over time, will get rigid as the old wineskins have done) but nearly people who are willing to receive the teaching about what God is now doing. We don't necessarily need to flake the patterns created in response to earlier didactics (though we might exist interested in reforming them). Much more important is whether, as people listening to this teaching, we enact the traditions we have received with flexibility, compassion and grace. It wasthis that the Pharisees lacked.
Two observations nearly the employ of this term in the contemporary C of East. First is that the motility which derives its name from this parable, New Wine, has never called for new or separate structures within the denominations in which it works (principally just not exclusively the Church of England.) Secondly, David Pytches, the founder of the movement, famously chosen the parish organisation the 'prophylactic of the Church building of England'. But this construction has not been scrapped. Instead, partly through Bishop'south Mission Orders, church building planting has been immune to happen flexibly inside and across this parochial structure without the construction itself being scrapped.
Then, what is the 'new vino' God is pouring into your life at the moment, and are you existence flexible like 'new wineskins' into society to receive information technology—without scorning the old affair that God did in your life yesterday?
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