Issue 51> 12 November 2002
  This site is updated weekly Sun, 29 December, 2002 11:42 PM
Away With The Old, In With The New

New cloth are flexible and fresh and after washing, they generally shrink and if one were to sew a piece of brand new cloth onto an old garment, the shrinking process for the new cloth will tear the old garment which would have gone brittle by now anyway. Likewise, new wine undergoes a process of fermentation and a lot of gases are released during this time. Old wineskins are rather brittle and they may not be able to take the expansion without bursting the skins.
What exactly did Jesus mean when He gave those two illustrations ( or parables )? Looking at the context of the passage of scriptures, we can see that the people came to Him to ask Him about some Old Testament practices about fasting and why He and His disciples did not observe those customs. In the Old Testament, besides the 10 commandments, there is an additional 653 ceremonial and social laws that devout Jews were expected to keep and these weighed heavily on the people.

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17. Nor do people put
new wine into old
wineskins; otherwise the
wineskins burst, and the
wine pours out and the
wineskins are ruined; but
they put new wine into
fresh wineskins, and both
are preserved.
Matthew 9:17 NKJV

15 "He shall call upon Me,
and I will answer him;
I will be with him in
trouble;
I will deliver him and
honor him.
16 With long life
I will satisfy him,
and show him My
salvation. "
Psalms 91:15-16 NKJV
Hard Sayings of the Bible ( IVP Press)

1 Peter 1:9: Salvation: Past, Present or Future?

Evangelical Christians frequently speak of being "saved." In other words, it is easy for them to speak of having received salvation at some point in the past, when they committed themselves to Jesus as Lord. But does this language fit with that of 1 Peter? Peter appears to be speaking of salvation as a goal, an end result, not as something already possessed. Does this mean that salvation is uncertain?

Peter uses the term salvation four times in his first epistle (1 Pet 1:5, 9-10; 2:2); he refers to being saved three more times (1 Pet 3:20-21; 4:18). One of these references is to a present process of salvation (1 Pet 3:21, the subject of a later chapter), and the rest refer to a future salvation (except 1 Pet 3:20, which refers to Noah's salvation). In 1 Peter salvation will not be revealed until the last time (1 Pet 1:5). It comes after the end of the present process of suffering for Jesus (1 Pet 4:19). Therefore it is something that one can grow up into (1 Pet 2:2; not "in" as NIV). In other words, Peter is relatively consistent in viewing salvation as something future.


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A Little More on the Land of Israel (coming soon!)


 
All references taken from RBC, Pat Robertson, Ron Rhodes, Kenneth/Gloria Copeland, Charles Slagle, Smith Wigglesworth, Selwyn Hughes, Charles Spurgeon, Manners and Customs of Bible Times, The Complete Bible Handbook, The Spirit Filled Bible(NKJV), The NIV Bible, God's Promises for your every Need, Idiot's Guide to Bible Mysteries, Hard Sayings of The Bible, Articles courtesy of Mr Andrew L W Lee.