Luke 5:36-39

Jesus is using an illustration in which the wine represents the new things that are coming into our mind. And what is already there exerts a powerful influence on a person's choices because there is a natural rejection mechanism at work within us to something that is new.

I am not talking about an object like a new house, new car, or new clothing. I do not think that there is a natural rejection process to that, but rather to a new concept—a new, different way of doing, seeing, or understanding something.

The new thing jars our sensibilities because it disturbs our sense of values. It disturbs us and motivates us to resist accepting something even though there might be an admission that what we are rejecting is true. What is ours is valuable to us. I wonder if we realize how pervasive this rejection system is!

Luke 5:36-39

You understand that the new wine represents the truth of God. The old wine represents the traditions of the culture that we have been born into—the one that has produced the prejudices in our mind that we do not want to get rid of whenever the new wine comes. We are the vessel, and if we do not have the willingness to change, then we will be "burst," the old wineskin by the new. A process of destruction begins to take place unless we become new.