Wine & Wineskins

Hi Mark, Jim, David, and “Cisco” Tom,
I’m currently working my way through Acts (on my way through the rest of the NT) and an assignment with which I have on a number of occassions challenged others: to identify the dominant characteristics of the NT church, and then to contrast them with the dominant characteristics of our own churches. It has long been my suspicion that the “top 5” lists may have no items in common, and that the “top 10” lists may have 1 or 2 items in common but not at the same priority or prominence levels.

If y’all can figure out how to restore the signs and wonders aspect and the evangelistic mission aspect please let me know. I can see the destination on the map but apparently don’t know where I am because I certainly haven’t figured out how to get there (to the destination) from here.

One area related to this issue of the true blueprint for the church, and one which has really captured my attention is the issue of the wine vs. the wineskins—that is, the work of Christ’s Spirit in building His people and church, and the temporary (disposable) structures which for a limited time serve as the repositories/dispensories of that (continuously being poured forth) effectual grace. In large part it appears to me that the church of today has become enmired in the same disastrous (traitorous?) preference for the wineskins rather than the wine, as did the religious leaders of Jesus’ day. (By the way, a great parable of this dynamic is to be found in the classic movie, “Bridge on the River Kwai.”) Our unwillingness to part with the old wineskins equates, by definition, to quenching the Spirit. The new wine will burst the old wineskins, so the choice becomes whether to quench the new wine when it starts bursting our comfortable old wineskins, or to abandon them and go with the new wineskins God always provides with the new wine.

It is one thing to call the church to be a successful religious corporation, and a far different thing to call it to be the church according to the NT blueprint. I think the thing going for the “seeker” churches is that their quest to make outreach the first work requires them to do incidentally a number of things which Christians are called to do in discipleship of Jesus, such as, “having this same mind in you which was in Christ Jesus, who did not regard His exalted position a thing to be clung to but humbled Himself and took the place of a servant to the true benefit of others, giving up His comforts, in fact, His life,” and “in honor preferring others above yourselves.” We RATS may take a number of exceptions to their theological motivations, but they end up following Jesus in some ways which are easy for most of us to neglect.

Anyway, those are some of my musings from the mud in which my wheels are spinning...

Grace and peace,
Craig Hofer
Fort Gatlin Alliance Church