I also think it’s possible that if ‘the church’ really wants people to stop leaving Christianity…if they really want the faith to be attractive again…then maybe they oughta take another look at the original movement that Jesus Himself started over a couple of thousand years ago.
Originally Posted by Hastings
I think so also. Jesus came to the lost sheep of Israel. He didn't say anything about creating a new religion to replace Judaism. I believe he wanted to straighten out the emphasis on following the letter of the law but not the spirit of the law. I also believe he fully intended for all of mankind to be welcomed into the covenant.
To the contrary, Jesus made it crystal clear that He was establishing a New Covenant…the same New Covenant that the old testament prophet Jeremiah referred to…and the reason He invited Peter and Andrew and Levi and James and John to embrace it ~ and the reason His invitation is extended to all of us ~ is because the time had come.
The wait was over. Ancient Judaism pointed to a time when God was going to reveal Himself in such a way that the entire world would be invited into a brand new kind of Kingdom. A Kingdom of the conscience, a Kingdom of the heart. Jesus made it crystal clear that the Kingdom of God has come near, which means we are never far. We’re one decision away, we’re one turn away, we’re one shift in mindset away.
So we’re told to “repent”…by Jesus and John the Baptist…that is, face and embrace this brand new news. And it was Jesus’ pursuit of the unrighteous, it was His pursuit of sinner’s, that illustrated this revolutionary Kingdom of God.
One didn’t have to be born an Ancient Jew, one didn’t have to understand and follow Ancient Jewish customs, one didn’t have to speak the Jewish language, and one didn’t have to have an Ancient Jewish heritage ~ everyone is invited. And Jesus went out of His way to invite people in.
Jesus said that no-one sews a new (unshrunk) patch onto an old garment because the new piece (the unshrunk piece) will pull away from the old, making the tear in the old even worse. And Jesus also said in the same way, no-one pours new wine into old wineskins because the old wineskins would burst and both the wine and the wineskins would be ruined.
Jesus’ point was that this new and unique teaching, this brand new distinctive worldview was like the new cloth and the new wine…and the mental image of the torn cloth and the burst wineskins…illustrated the impossibility of trying to blend Jesus’ New Covenant ~ which He clearly said He was establishing, the same New Covenant that the old testament prophet Jeremiah spoke of ~ with Ancient Judaism’s old covenant.
Jesus made it crystal clear that He didn’t come to blend anything, and that one couldn’t add what He was teaching to what one already had; that one couldn’t pour what He was teaching into the container that one already had. It was all new. And He made it crystal clear that He was introducing something completely new. He was creating a new movement, a new ekklesia.
The two covenants are completely incompatible. Jesus came to fulfill and retire the entire Law of Moses and replace it with something better. You pour new wine into new wineskins.
