Progress
"Besides, who would patch old clothing with new cloth? For the new patch would shrink and rip away from the old cloth, leaving an even bigger tear than before. "And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the wine would burst the wineskins, and the wine and the skins would both be lost. New wine calls for new wineskins."
One of my favorite passages. (wow I've got alot of favorite passages) The imagery in this totally blows my mind. How relevant to what we experience on a daily basis. Before you think of this, and really begin to accept it you need to realize how we in many ways are the old wineskins. Even if you try and say you're encouraging change. Change is inevitably difficult, and inevitable itself. We're never going to realize how "out of touch" we are. Change continues to move forward, and you'll never catch it. You kinda need to ride it. The "God" wave. Holding on to the past isn't going to help you.
Jesus dishes out some great images at the end of Mark. Three examples really. The first he speaks about patching old cloth. The verse brings me back to the message from Reggie Joiner in Atlanta. Changing our system, and not trying to throw a new patch on a old way of doing things. Number one, it just doesn't work, number two, it just damages everything. We first need to change the system (in Jesus's parable get new cloth all together!)
Number two is with the wineskins. So often we hang on to our favorites, and what's comfortable, and good. But really we need to view it as something new all around. This next comment is going to sound awful, but I'm really just gonna speak my mind on this contributions...
Perhaps why some communities and churches struggle so much to adapt is because they're so comfortable in hanging on to the leadership because they're experienced, and then they try to apply new blood and ideas (aka different styles of music, a lessened sense of routine, more of a flat out search for Christ's heart) and hang onto the old wineskins. Maybe its time to let the new come in?
Finally the church imagery, with harvesting grain. The line (Mark 2:27) that says "The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of people, and not people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath."
SHOCKING. We don't need to try and fit in, because we already do. The Sabbath is exactly what we need. What God created for us, created us to need. It's to meet the needs of the people. We don't need to try to "fit in" in that way.
Anyways just some more awesome verses from Mark 2!
Created over 2 years ago
