Patches & Wineskins
The Problems That The Pharisees Had with Jesus
q They challenged the orthodoxy of his belief system.
q They questioned the company that he kept
q They wanted to measure his spirituality by their own standards
The Parable Of The Patches & Wineskins
What we know for sure:
q New wineskins are required for new wine
q Old wine is a product of new wine, new wineskins and a natural process
q Old wine is preferable to new wine
Dakota tribal wisdom says that when you discover you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount. However, in business we often try other strategies with dead horses, including the following:
1. Buying a stronger whip.
2. Changing riders.
3. Say things like, "This is the way we have always ridden this horse."
4. Appointing a committee to study the horse.
5. Arranging to visit other sites to see how they ride dead horses.
6. Increasing the standards to ride dead horses.
7. Appointing a tiger team to revive the dead horse.
8. Creating a training session to increase our riding ability.
9. Comparing the state of dead horses in todays environment.
10. Change the requirements declaring that "This horse is not dead."
11. Hire contractors to ride the dead horse.
12. Harnessing several dead horses together for increased speed.
13. Declaring that "No horse is too dead to beat."
14. Providing additional funding to increase the horse's performance.
15. Do a Cost Analysis study to see if contractors can ride it cheaper.
16. Purchase a product to make dead horses run faster.
17. Declare the horse is "better, faster and cheaper" dead.
18. Form a quality circle to find uses for dead horses.
19. Revisit the performance requirements for horses.
20. Say this horse was procured with cost as an independent variable.
21. Promote the dead horse to a supervisory position.
According to legend when Noah entered the ark he took along a vine. He had been a gardener before he built the ark, and when he settled again on the land after the deluge, he planted the vine once more and returned to his old occupation.
As he worked in the garden, Satan came to him and said:
"If you will let me help you, I can show you how to make grapes grow on the vine tomorrow."
"That," said Noah, "is something worth seeing."
Satan helped Noah plant the vine. Then Satan took a lamb, a lion, a monkey and a pig and watered the plant with their blood.
That is why, after the first glass of wine, one becomes gentle as a lamb; after the second glass of wine, as daring as a lion; after the third glass one is apt to make a monkey of himself; and after the fourth glass of wine, a man becomes drunk and behaves like a pig.
n Lore of the Old Testament
We of the churches often gather our robes away from contamination, and thank God that we are not as other men. We don't despise God's name; in fact, we call upon it constantly to justify ourselves... If we object to meat-eating, we declare that God is vegetarian; if we abhor war, we proclaim a pacifist Deity. He who turned water into wine to gladden a wedding it now accused by many of favouring that abominable fluid grape juice. There can hardly be a more evil way of taking God's name in vain than this way of presuming to speak in it. For here is spiritual pride, the ultimate sin, in action -- the sin of believing in one's own righteousness. The true prophet says humbly, "To me, a sinful man, God spoke." But the scribes and Pharisees declare, "When we speak, God agrees." They feel no need of a special revelation, for they are always, in their own view, infallible. It is this self-righteousness of the pious that most breeds atheism, by inspiring all decent, ordinary men with loathing of the
enormous lie.
... Joy Davidman, Smoke on the Mountain