Matthew 9:1-17

Something old. Something new.

We tend to take Jesus’ statements about a new patch on an old garment and new wine and old wineskins and attach them to the Church. This is not entirely wrong. For sure old institutional structures at times do need to be discarded in order to accommodate new and better ideas. However, this isn’t just about religion and not even primarily about religion. What Jesus was doing was shaking the very foundations of the world system.

The reason that Church institutions often need shaking up is not because they cling to old values but because the world’s values inevitably creep in and corrupt every institution in a fallen world. If this is the case with the Church and Marriage (the two institutions ordained by God), how much more is it the case in business, government, the military, entertainment, education and all such worldly institutions.

It wasn’t just their ideas about religion that Jesus was turning on its head; it was their ideas about life. If we will come to the Word openly and honestly it will rock our World no less than it did the people of the first century. That’s a good thing.