Daily Reading for Friday, Feb. 1: Change

“No one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost and the skins as well; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.” Mark 2:22

“And Jesus said to them, "Therefore every scribe who has become a disciple of the kingdom of heaven is like a head of a household, who brings out of his treasure things new and old.” Matthew 13:52

When discussing change and our approach to it, we must be careful to keep change in perspective. We don’t want change simply for change sake. There is great value in tradition and consistency of practice. Look at the saying of Jesus about wineskins. You don’t pour new wine into old wineskins. The new wine will ferment, causing that already stretched wineskins to burst—ruining the vessel and the contents. This verse should not be interpreted to say that only the new wine is worth having. What Jesus is telling us through this passage is that we must be judicious in our applications of both the old wine and the new wine. While change does have value, so too, does consistency. We don’t wear our winter coats in the middle of summer because the season doesn’t dictate that we do. We would be foolish to use and otherwise vital piece of clothing in a season that it wasn’t appropriate to use it in. In the same manner, while we must value and embrace change, we also must be wise in our approach. We can’t be lead by every wind of doctrine that blows around, nor can we follow every new method. We cannot be in a state of constant change; we must have periods of stability so that the building can settle and become firm on its foundation. Dr. Raleigh Jenkins once described the spiritual walk in terms of a stair step. On the horizontal plain, it seems as though not much in happening, not much is occurring. It is on that plain that the consistency of sound spiritual disciplines and practices grounds us in our faith. Then we reach the vertical plain, and that is where growth and maturity come into full fruit. We seem to rocket up to a higher level of understanding and awareness. This is the arena of change. We have change and consistency, each fueling the other and both accomplishing the plan of God in our lives, and we need both change and consistency in order to be that perfected house of God that He is building us into.