Garments and Wineskins - 119 Ministries

[Music] hello and welcome to another teaching from 119 ministries our ministry believes that the whole bible is true and directly applicable to our lives today if you would like to know more about what we believe and teach please visit us at testeverything.net if you enjoyed this video don't forget to hit the like button and subscribe to our channel by hitting the button down below we hope you enjoy studying and testing the following teaching [Music] in mark chapter 2 jesus whose hebrew name is yeshua is asked a question about fasting now john's disciples and the pharisees were fasting and people came and said to him why do john's disciples and the disciples of the pharisees fast but your disciples do not fast yeshua does not answer this question directly but instead responds with three parables and yeshua said to them can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them as long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them and then they will fast in that day no one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment if he does the patch tears away from it the new from the old and a worse tear is made and no one puts new wine into old wineskins if he does the wine will burst the skins and the wine is destroyed and so are the skins but new wine is for fresh wineskins what did yeshua mean by these parables how do they answer the question that he was asked why were these other religious jews fasting but not yeshua or his disciples usually these parables are explained in the following way first the bridegroom in verse 19 is interpreted as a metaphor for yeshua himself as an article from one evangelical website says the first one is a parable of a bridegroom with his groomsmen at a wedding feast jesus point is that fasting during the wedding feast is pointless in this story jesus is the bridegroom and while he is present in this world it is a time of celebration because he is the fulfillment of their messianic prophecies second the new cloth and the new wine in verses 21 and 22 are interpreted as metaphors for either yeshua or his teachings while the old garment and the old wineskins are interpreted as metaphors for the old religious standards the same article states these two parables illustrate the fact that you can't mix old religious rituals with new faith in jesus jesus disciples were not fasting along with the pharisees and john's disciples because they were now under the new covenant of grace and faith in christ as mentioned earlier jesus fulfilled the law therefore there is no longer any need to continue with the old rituals jesus cannot be added to a works-based religion in the case of the pharisees they were consumed with their own self-righteousness and faith in jesus cannot be combined with self-righteous rituals at first glance this explanation for these parables seems like an adequate one however upon closer examination this interpretation encounters several major problems the first problem arises as a result of the bridegroom in the first parable being interpreted as a metaphor for the messiah it is natural to suppose that yeshua is metaphorically referring to himself as the bridegroom here because there are other scriptures that refer to him as a bridegroom here are a few of them john 3 john answered a person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven you yourselves bear me witness that i said i am not the christ but i have been sent before him the one who has the bride is the bridegroom the friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice therefore this joy of mine is now complete he must increase but i must decrease revelation 19 let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory for the marriage of the lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen bright and pure for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints ephesians 5 wives submit to your own husbands as to the lord for the husband is head of the wife even as christ is the head of the church his body and is himself its savior now as the church submits to christ so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands husbands love your wives as christ loved the church and gave himself up for her that he might sanctify her having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish so we have a number of examples of yeshua being depicted as a bridegroom however there are two problems with interpreting the bridegroom of mark ii as a metaphor for yeshua the first problem is that in the scriptures we just cited that call yeshua the bridegroom the church is called the bride however in this parable if the bridegroom is a reference to yeshua then the wedding guests would be a reference to his disciples since his disciples are part of the church one would think that they would be called the bride not the wedding guests the second problem is that verse 20 says the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them and then they will fast in that day why would yeshua say that the disciples are going to fast like the pharisees after he has gone if the pharisees doctrines were incompatible with yeshua's doctrines why would they suddenly become compatible after yeshua's ascension another major problem comes from applying the term new wine in verse 22 to yeshua or his teachings this would be a strange metaphor for yeshua to use because new wine is considered inferior to old wine wine becomes more desirable and more expensive as it ages as the talmud states a man should not pass off new wine for old when giving his friend a drink because that is a kind of robbery this is why the apostles were mocked in acts chapter 2 verse 13 with the phrase they are full of new wine new wine is cheaper and easier to obtain in large quantities most significantly new wine is called inferior in this very parable luke chapter 5 has a parallel account of this same parable but luke's account has an extra line at the end luke 5 39 and no one after drinking old wine desires new for he says the old is good if yeshua is saying that his teachings are superior to the pharisees teachings it seems very strange that he would call himself or his teachings new wine if anything he should be calling his teachings old wine to show that they are better we can see that the conventional metaphorical interpretations of these parables have some serious holes in them saying that the bridegroom or the new wine or referring to yeshua doesn't seem to add up when the entirety of the parable is considered but if these interpretations are insufficient then what is the correct interpretation why are yeshua's disciples not fasting like the disciples of john or the pharisees to answer this let's first take a closer look at what this fasting of the pharisees was all about the scriptures do not explicitly say what was involved in this fasting but we may be able to use other historical and scriptural sources to infer some things about it the first thing to notice about this fasting is that it is being performed as a group this was not a case of an individual choosing to fast and pray for his own personal reasons but of a group fasting together at the same time presumably for reasons that would affect the entire group these kinds of corporate fasts have existed in judaism for a very long time the talmud describes four fast days that were observed every year it says we are required to fast on the 9th of av and on the 17th of tammuz and on the third of tishrei and on the 10th of teves because of the bad occurrences that occurred on those days these days of fasting were observed every year and they were days of grieving over disasters that had befallen israel including the destruction of solomon's temple they are likely the four days mentioned in zechariah chapter 8. for thus says yahweh of hosts as i purposed to bring disaster to you when your fathers provoked me to wrath and i did not relent says yahweh of hosts so again have i purposed in these days to bring good to jerusalem and to the house of judah fear not these are things that you shall do speak the truth to one another render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace do not devise evil in your hearts against one another and love no false oath for all these things i hate declares yahweh and the word of yahweh of hosts came to me saying thus says yahweh of hosts the fast of the fourth month and the fast of the fifth and the fast of the seventh and the fast of the tenth shall be to the house of judah seasons of joy and gladness and cheerful feasts therefore love truth and peace while it is likely that these annual fast days were being observed in yeshua's time it is unlikely that these are the fasts that yeshua was being asked about in mark chapter 2. again in the parallel account in luke 5 it says that these fasts were observed often luke 5 33 and they said to him the disciples of john fast often and offer prayers and so do the disciples of the pharisees but yours eat and drink four times a year is not exactly often so it is more likely that the fasting that yeshua was being asked about was instead a tradition of fasting twice a week we see this tradition described in luke chapter 18. he also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated others with contempt two men went up into the temple to pray one a pharisee and the other a tax collector the pharisee standing by himself prayed thus god i thank you that i am not like other men extortioners unjust adulterers or even like this tax collector i fast twice a week i give tithes of all that i get but the tax collector standing far off would not even lift up his eyes to heaven but beat his breast saying god be merciful to me a sinner i tell you this man went down into his house justified rather than the other for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled but the one who humbles himself will be exalted this jewish practice of fasting twice a week is also attested to in the didache which is a guide to christian practices that was written sometime before 300 a.d it states but as for your fasts let them not be with the hypocrites for they fast on the second and fifth days of the week but do ye fast on the fourth and sixth days later jewish tradition also prescribes fasts with this exact schedule fasting on the second and fifth days of the week the talmud states if private individuals commenced to keep the fast days they should fast on monday thursday and the following monday it seems likely that yeshua was being asked about this monday and thursday fasting that we see in these other sources additionally it is likely that these fasts involve more than just abstaining from food the talmud again states if these three fast days have passed without their prayers having been favorably answered the supreme court shall decree three more public and general fasts on the nights preceding these it is not permitted to eat or drink and on the fast days it is prohibited to work to bathe to anoint the body to wear shoes or to perform the duty of cohabitation and the public bathing places are to be closed these additional prohibitions specifically the ones on bathing and anointing the body are mentioned in another one of yeshua's critiques of fasting found in matthew chapter 6. and when you fast do not look gloomy like the hypocrites for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others truly i say to you they have received their reward but when you fast anoint your head and wash your face that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your father who is in secret and your father who sees in secret will reward you so it is likely that the fasting days that yeshua was being asked about were observed twice a week that they were days of mourning and sorrow and that they involved abstaining both from food and from other kinds of pleasures but what was their purpose why were these fasts instituted and what were they meant to accomplish it's hard to say for sure why this fasting was being done but again we can get some more clues from the talmud the talmud describes a number of conditions that make public fasting days appropriate the most prevalent one is drought fasting was a part of a process of asking god for rain however there were also other reasons to call a public fast the talmud says and likewise if a city is afflicted by pestilence or collapsing buildings that city fasts and cries out and all of its surrounding areas fast but they do not cry out rabbi akiva says they cry out but they do not fast for the following calamities they cry out in every place for blight for mildew for locusts for caterpillars a type of locust that comes in large swarms and descends upon a certain place for dangerous beasts that have entered a town and for the sword that is legions of an invading army the reason that they cry out about these misfortunes in every place is because these are calamities that spread at the time of yeshua's ministry israel was being occupied by an invading army specifically the army of rome this was not necessarily the reason for the fast that the pharisees were performing but it was a condition that rabbis in later times used to justify public fasting days whatever the specific reason was it was most likely some kind of calamity or undesirable situation as for what the fast was meant to accomplish the most likely explanation is that it was intended to be a display of sorrow that would move god to have mercy on the people who were fasting and to grant their requests there are many examples of this logic being applied to fasting and one such example is in the fasting of king david after his affair with bathsheba second samuel 12 and yahweh afflicted the child that uriah's wife bore to david and he became sick david therefore sought god on behalf of the child and david fasted and went in and lay all night on the ground and the elders of his house stood beside him to raise him from the ground but he would not nor did he eat food with them on the seventh day the child died and the servants of david were afraid to tell him that the child was dead for they said behold while the child was yet alive we spoke to him and he did not listen to us how then can we say to him the child is dead he may do himself some harm but when david saw that his servants were whispering together david understood that the child was dead and david said to his servants is the child dead they said he is dead then david arose from the earth and washed and anointed himself and changed his clothes and he went into the house of yahweh and worshiped he then went to his own house and when he asked they set food before him and he ate then his servants said to him what is this thing that you have done you fasted and wept for the child while he was alive but when the child died you arose and ate food he said while the child was still alive i fasted and wept for i said who knows whether yahweh will be gracious to me that the child may live but now he is dead why should i fast can i bring him back again i shall go to him but he will not return to me david fasts here to try to convince god to spare his child's life however once he sees that god will not be persuaded to grant his request he stops fasting this is the usual logic behind fasting if prayer alone is not enough to get god's attention then prayer and fasting might be more effective while we don't know exactly why the pharisees and john's disciples were fasting we know that they were doing it because they wanted god to help them in some way since they were fasting corporately it is likely that they were not asking for personal help but rather for help that would solve a problem that was affecting the entire nation what is interesting about this is that the scriptures frequently explain why israel suffered as a nation at various times throughout history whether the problem was drought or pestilence or sword the prophets consistently told israel that these disasters were brought on by the nation's sins jeremiah chapter 7 for if you truly amend your ways and your deeds if you truly execute justice one with another if you do not oppress the sojourner the fatherless or the widow or shed innocent blood in this place and if you do not go after other gods to your own harm then i will let you dwell in this place in the land that i gave of old to your fathers forever behold you trust in deceptive words to no avail will you steal murder commit adultery swear falsely make offerings to ba'al and go after other gods that you have not known and then come and stand before me in this house which is called by my name and say we are delivered only to go on doing all these abominations has this house which is called by my name become a den of robbers in your eyes behold i myself have seen it declares yahweh go now to my place that was in shiloh where i made my name dwell at first and see what i did to it because of the evil of my people israel and now because you have done all these things declares yahweh and when i spoke to you persistently you did not listen and when i called you you did not answer therefore i will do to the house that is called by my name and in which you trust and to the place that i gave to you and your fathers as i did to sheila and i will cast you out of my sight as i cast out all your kinsmen all the offspring of ephraim here jeremiah explains that the temple was destroyed because of israel's sins zachariah has a similar explanation for the desolation of the land of israel zechariah also criticizes the idea of using fasting to try to fix this problem zechariah chapter 7 say to all the people of the land and the priests when you fasted and mourned in the fifth month and in the seventh for these seventy years was it for me that you fasted and when you eat and when you drink do you not eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves were not these the words that yahweh proclaimed by the former prophets when jerusalem was inhabited and prosperous with her cities around her and the south and the low land were inhabited and the word of the lord came to zechariah saying thus says yahweh of hosts render true judgments show kindness and mercy to one another do not oppress the widow the fatherless the sojourner or the poor and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart but they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder and stopped their ears that they might not hear they made their hearts diamond hard lest they should hear the law and the words that yahweh of hosts had sent by his spirit through the former prophets therefore great anger came from yahweh of hosts as i called and they would not hear so they called and i would not hear says yahweh of hosts and i scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations that they had not known thus the land they left was desolate so that no one went to and fro and the pleasant land was made desolate again it is the people's sins specifically their lack of compassion for the poor that caused this desolation zechariah was telling them that their fasts were ineffective and that they should instead be repenting from their evil ways we see these same themes again in the words of isaiah isaiah chapter 58 cry aloud do not hold back lift up your voice like a trumpet declare to my people their transgression to the house of jacob their sins yet they seek me daily and delight to know my ways as if they were a nation that did righteousness and did not forsake the judgment of their god they ask of me righteous judgments they delight to draw near to god why have we fasted and you see it not why have we humbled ourselves and you take no knowledge of it behold in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure and oppress all your workers behold you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to hit with a wicked fist fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high is such the fast that i choose a day for a person to humble himself is it to bow down his head like a reed and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him will you call this a fast and a day acceptable to yahweh is not this the fast that i choose to loose the bonds of wickedness to undo the straps of the yoke to let the oppressed go free and to break every yoke is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house when you see the naked to cover him and not to hide yourself from your own flesh then shall your light break forth like the dawn and your healing shall spring up speedily your righteousness shall go before you the glory of yahweh shall be your rear guard then you shall call and yahweh will answer you shall cry and he will say here i am here we see again that the nation's afflictions were being caused by their sins and that fasting was not a remedy for those afflictions as long as the people continued to sin god would not hear their requests to remove the afflictions that their sins had caused yeshua's words about fasting in matthew 6 and luke 18 very much echo the words of these prophets yeshua said that the pharisees were fasting so that men would see their righteousness and be impressed instead of fasting as a part of repentance and changing their behavior as zechariah would say they were not fasting to god if they wanted to get god's attention then they should have been turning their hearts back toward god serving him and loving their fellow men instead they were continuing to sin to do the very things that brought their calamities upon them as we return to the parables in mark chapter 2 we now have some more information that we can use to try to interpret them we know that the pharisees fasting was a corporate sign of mourning and was designed to get god's attention so that he would have mercy on their nation we know that yeshua viewed this fasting the same way that the prophets did as being insufficient to replace true repentance and a hypocritical display of righteousness that was designed to impress other people rather than to do what was right in god's eyes there is one more piece of context that will help us interpret these parables and that is the verses that describe what happened right before yeshua was asked about fasting mark 2 verses 13-17 he went out again beside the sea and all the crowd was coming to him and he was teaching them and as he passed by he saw levi the son of alphaeus sitting at the tax booth and he said to him follow me and he rose and followed him and as he reclined at table in his house many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with yeshua and his disciples for there were many who followed him and the scribes of the pharisees when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors said to his disciples why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners and when yeshua heard it he said to them those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick i came not to call the righteous but sinners this story is connected to the question about fasting that follows it in verse 16 yeshua is asked why he is eating with tax collectors and sinners later in verse 18 he is asked why he is eating at all because this is all happening on a public fast day yeshua answers the first question by saying that he was calling the sinners in order to heal them of their sickness that is to say to bring them to repentance for their sins he answers the second question with the three parables that we are seeking to interpret let's read those parables again and see if we can make sense of them in the light of everything else that we've read mark 2 verses 18 through 22 now john's disciples and the pharisees were fasting and people came and said to him why do john's disciples and the disciples of the pharisees fast but your disciples do not fast and yeshua said to them can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them as long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them and then they will fast in that day no one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment if he does the patch tears away from it the new from the old and a worse tear is made and no one puts new wine into old wineskins if he does the wine will burst the skins and the wine is destroyed and so are the skins but new wine is for fresh wineskins when yeshua speaks of the bridegroom and the wedding guests he is not using a metaphor at all he is talking about appropriate and inappropriate behavior a wedding is a time of celebration fasting at a wedding is inappropriate because if one were to fast and mourn at a wedding it would destroy the celebration this theme of inappropriate action that leads to destruction carries over into the parables about garments and wineskins applying the wrong patch to a garment will destroy the garment and putting new wine in the wrong containers will destroy the containers and waste the wine in the same way trying to solve national problems by fasting alone is a wasted effort and as long as fasting is the focus instead of repentance the problems are going to get worse while the pharisees were fasting to try to get god's attention and move him to have mercy on them yeshua was instead addressing the root of the problem yeshua was on that very day having compassion on a group of tax collectors and sinners and bringing them to repentance this is why in matthew's account of these events yeshua says this matthew chapter 9 verse 13 go and learn what this means i desire mercy and not sacrifice for i came not to call the righteous but sinners yeshua was providing mercy while the pharisees were providing only sacrifice in the form of their fasting god desires the mercy not the sacrifice as it says in psalms 18 with the merciful you show yourself merciful with the blameless man you show yourself blameless with the purified you show yourself pure and with the crooked you make yourself seem tortuous for you save a humble people but the haughty eyes you bring down and as yeshua himself says in matthew chapter 5 blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy so in conclusion these parables in mark 2 are not metaphors about yeshua replacing judaism or the old testament but rather they are simply making the point that problems cannot be solved with inappropriate solutions the pharisees fasts made them look pious and godly but they did nothing to truly get god's attention and move him to have mercy on them as long as the pharisees were more focused on fasting than on true repentance and compassion they would continue to bring destruction upon themselves in the same way that putting new wine in old wineskins would destroy the wineskins or that fasting at a wedding would ruin the wedding yeshua just like the prophets before him was showing them a better way to get god's attention the reason his disciples were not fasting is because they were instead doing what god desires they were addressing the sin that was at the root of the nation's problems we pray that you have been blessed by this teaching remember continue to test everything shalom [Music] it is because of you our generous supporters who make it possible to offer these high quality teachings completely free of charge if you feel led to support 119 ministries so that we can continue this effort please visit testeverything.net and click on the support 119 tab learn how you can partner with us to take the whole word of god to the nations [Music] you

Channel: 119Ministries

Views: 4,359

Rating: 4.9189191 out of 5

Keywords: 119Ministries, torah, bible, hebrew roots, Garments and Wineskins, Mark 2:18-22, new covenant, new wine, old covenant, old wine, fasting, luke 5:33-39; matthew 9, bridegroom, replacement theology, John’s disciples

Id: KUwa4MDkSII

Length: 29min 49sec (1789 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 24 2021