The Hebrew word Torah means teaching and instruction. It was always meant to be a way to bring people back to God, but never a way to build a religion that would exclude people and block their access to God. Unfortunately, what was happening in the days of Jesus continues to happen until today. Some people turn the teachings and instructions into a religion, and you are in or out according to the traditions that they follow.
“The Pharisees and their scribes began grumbling at His disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with the tax collectors and sinners?” And Jesus answered and said to them, “It is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick. “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” And they said to Him, “The disciples of John often fast and offer prayers, the disciples of the Pharisees also do the same, but Yours eat and drink.” And Jesus said to them, “You cannot make the attendants of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them, can you? “But the days will come; and when the bridegroom is taken away from them, then they will fast in those days.” And He was also telling them a parable: “No one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and puts it on an old garment; otherwise he will both tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old. “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled out, and the skins will be ruined. “But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. “And no one, after drinking old wine wishes for new; for he says, ‘The old is good enough.’ ”” (Luke 5:30–39, NASB95)
This passage relates to the previous blog that the old wine is the original teaching, and the new wine is the traditions created by people after that. The Torah was never given to create a religion but a way to relate to God, not by our merits and the things we can do, but by way of what God has always been willing to do, to provide us with a way back to a relationship with him.
We must read this not only as a message to those who were listening to Jesus at his time but also as a prophetic message for our times. We can also get the same idea from the message that Paul was teaching to the churches before the end of his ministry. Paul desired to prepare and equip the saints against false teachings that would be like the new patches in an old garment, that would eventually bring great damage to the people of God.
““Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. “I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.” (Acts 20:28–30, NASB95)
We can also clearly understand this from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. “And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming;” (Ephesians 4:11–14, NASB95)
I don’t know about you, but I am choosing to stay with the teaching that Jesus was teaching. The same way as we all can read in the New Testament, it is all by grace and not by works, it is all by a relationship and not by a religious effort and performance.
Matthew 23: 13-23
The Old Wine is Better – Part 2
