New Wineskins
“No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. Otherwise, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins.” — Mark 2:21-22 Gracious Lord Jesus, my friend and my King, In your day, pouring new wine into old wineskins was commonly understood to be a big mistake. Liquids were stored in vessels from sewn together animal skins. When wine was poured in, the fermentation process would release gasses and cause the wineskin to expand. A new wineskin was pliable and able to expand with the wine. But as wineskins aged over time, often left out in the hot desert sun, they would become dry and brittle. Now, no longer able to contain new wine, they would burst under the pressure of new wine expanding within them. Leather tanners had a process of restoring old wineskins to make them new a...