The Pharisees in Jesus’ day were very concerned about being “clean”. They worried more about what entered the body than what came out. Their outward relationship with people was not a loving and caring one, but one of judgement and condemnation. Jesus came along and turned everything around. He pointed out that what comes out of you is the more important than what is placed in you. In Matthew 15:19-20 Jesus said, 19 “For out of the heart come evil evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what make a man ‘unclean’; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him ‘unclean.’ “ Let us be more concerned with what comes out of our mouths and the actions we produce with our hands than what we put in. This does not mean we can put filth into our minds and expect beautiful things to come out, but it does mean we must be intentional about producing love through our actions and words.

When Jesus talks about wine and wineskins, He is talking about the Pharisees. Luke 5:38-39 says, 38 “No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. 39 And no one after drinking old wine wants new, for he says, ‘The old is better.’ “ As new wine ages it expands and therefore cannot be put into old, rigid wineskins because it will break the skins with the expanding wine. The Pharisees were like the old wineskins who were too rigid to handle the new covenant (new wine). Jesus could not be contained in the old traditions or rules. We must always work hard to stay pliable and follow Christ’s example of what really matters about the New Covenant; loving God and loving others.