New Wineskins
By Aly
When the Pharisees questioned Yeshua/Jesus, asking why his disciples didn’t behave like Yohannan/John’s disciples, or themselves, Yeshua gave them this parable:
“No one tears a piece out of a new garment to patch an old one. Otherwise, they will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. 37 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. 38 No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. 39 And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, ‘The old is better.’” – Luke 5:36-39
In my latest reading of this parable, I still didn’t feel like a had a good grasp of it. So I researched more and discovered an article that noted this from Pirkei Avot (Mishna):
“Rabbi Meir* said: ‘Do not look at the vessel, but rather at what it contains; there may be a new vessel filled with aged wine, or an old vessel in which there is not even new [wine].’” – Pirkei Avot 4:20
What this interpretation offers is that the garment or wineskins are not about religious observances or grace versus law, but rather the garment or wineskins represent the vessels, or people, who hold the teaching.
Traditionally, the parable of wineskins has been interpreted that the “old” represented the Law/Torah observance, and the “new” was grace and joy of the New Covenant. This is not what Yeshua taught. Yeshua lived a Jewish life, as did all the first apostles. Grace was always part of Judaism. Yeshua came to fulfill a new covenant given to Jewish people as promised in Jeremiah 31:31-34:
“Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— 32 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
In this context, with a fresh understanding that the wineskins/cloth are vessels, Yeshua is essentially telling the Pharisees, those who are already learned (or righteous, or healthy… or at least see themselves as such!) can’t easily receive a new way of looking at things.
Reference: Luke 5:32/Mark 2:17/Matthew 9:12
“I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” –Luke 5:32
“When Yeshua heard it, He said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.’” – Mark 2:17
“When Yeshua heard that, He said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.’” – Matthew 9:12
If you try to teach someone who already knows (old cloth/old wineskin), your teaching often means nothing to them – they can’t receive it because they feel they already know and you have nothing to teach them. Likewise, they can be set in their ways (39 And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, ‘The old is better.’)
It is young, unlearned vessels who can receive from Him. Yeshua’s disciples were fishermen and tax collectors. They were not religiously trained like the Pharisees. Yeshua was instituting among them something deeper, more relational and at the heart of God’s plans for them. He called to himself those whom he felt could receive. I think this resonates with what Yeshua says in Matthew 18: 3: “Truly I tell you, He said, ‘unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.’”
* Rabbi Meir lived after Jesus walked the earth. Some scholars say these sayings were around before in oral form and later written down and attributed to different rabbis, thus Jesus and the Pharisees would have known what Jesus meant (wineskins/cloth = people, who are vessels that can receive new teaching, or not). I think this interpretation makes the most sense in the context of the parable, as well in the context of Jesus’ other sayings and teaching.
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