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Old Wineskins, Old System

By daniel | October 24, 2005

Yesterday morning, we talked about Jesus' thoughts on the old wineskins vs the new, and how this applies today.  Jesus looked at the old system of Judaism, and acknowledging its former use, announces His replacement of it.  This system involved the temple, the priests, the sacrifices, etc.  His new system would simply involve Himself.  

The really heavy part of our discussion was looking at a comparison between the system that we find ourselves in, compared, not contrasted with, the Old Religious Judaism system that Jesus replaced.  I hope you will agree with me that we need some new wineskins, because these old ones simply cannot hold the new wine.

Religious Judaical-Temple Christian System

  • Special Building is Central to Worship
  • Clear Distinctions Between priests and non-priests clergy and laity, especially the high-priest senior pastor.
  • Complicated “Services”, special religious furniture and language only used in temple special building during services, ie, brazen alters, candlesticks pews, etc.
  • A Financial System to fund all the above
  • Looking to the Changes in Behavior before looking to the God who authored the Law Word
  • Development of additional rules, denominational distinctives, and behavioral preferences around the law (beyond what the law Word says) to distinguish God's people from others around them.

The relatively small number of changes I had to make, in order to make it more familiar, is kindof sad, I think.  There's this feeling, especially when we hit the denominations, of us trying to protect ourselves by maintaining lines between us and other believers — but Jesus never calls us to protect ourselves.  He promises to do this for us, if we will take up our cross and follow Him.

Topics: Spirituality - Thoughts |

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