We Must Identify and Validate both Old and New Wineskin
Expressions of the Church
It is first necessary to identify and validate both old and new wineskin expressions of the Church, and then detail how they are to relate to one another.
Both new and old wineskin expressions of the Church are valid and vital in these last days. Each serves their ordained purposes of the Lord in His wisdom and grace. We must identify them, honor them, and establish the Ways of the Kingdom of God that they may function together in His purpose while each maintains and fulfills their specific purpose in the Earth.
New vs Old Wineskins and Tribal Identification
A Wineskin:
A wineskin is made from the hide of an animal. The first principle for us to recognize is that there must be a death from which the wineskin can then be constructed! A life must be given in order to establish the wineskin. A freshly prepared animal hide would be pliable and somewhat elastic. This is necessary for a wineskin; for the new wine, when poured into the wineskin would begin to ferment as it aged. As it does so, the new wine begins to release gases inside the wineskin. The expanding gases push against the wineskin and expand it as it ferments. After the fermentation process, the wine and wineskin is then set aside to age for several years and the wineskin eventually becomes brittle, losing its flexibility. That is why new wine must be put in new wineskins that are flexible and can expand as the wine ages. The rigid old wineskin would burst if new wine was placed in it. But even though an old wineskin has become rigid and cannot receive the new, it is perfectly suited to contain the aged and refined wine. Old wine is refined wine! It is both balanced and subtly nuanced, whereas new wine has more of an edge to it.
The spiritual parallels are clear. The biblical metaphor of an old wineskin speaks of lives laid down in sacrificial service to establish a structure that will enable a people to have communion with God, which is represented by the wine.
Luk 5:39 No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better.
Even though a church or ministry becomes rigid in its structure, it is still highly treasured by God, though it may not embrace proceeding Truth as it unfolds. It still serves to enable a people to have ongoing communion with Him that are comfortable with that particular structure. God cherishes the members who paid the price to establish the ministry in the midst of ongoing struggles; both with people and continuous spiritual opposition!
The old wineskin is indeed vital, for it continues to maintain the ground gained for the Kingdom of God so that others can come forth from it as their foundation. They then have the opportunity to establish a legacy for those who matured and released them by pioneering and establishing new wineskin expressions for the Lord. The old prepares the way for the new, while the new honors the old by establishing the new wineskin expressions upon the unchanging ways of the Kingdom of God gleaned from their elders!
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