Old and New Cloth and Wineskins
Group: Incongruities
Luke 05:36-39Text QuotationLuke 5:36-39
And he spake also a parable unto them; No man putteth a piece of a new garment upon an old; if otherwise, then both the new maketh a rent, and the piece that was taken out of the new agreeth not with the old. And no man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish. But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved. No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better.
CommentaryChristians should have proper reference, in all their arrangements, to the proprieties of time and place. It would be unsuitable for the disciples of the Savior to mourn while he was with them, just as it would be unsuitable for the guests at a wedding to be gloomy and sad. The other illustrations are are merely striking cases of incongruity. - New cloth is unfulled cloth, which would shrink on being accidentally wet, and thus produce a degree of tension in the surrounding parts which would soon cause a more extended rent than the one which it was intended to repair.- Bottles were made of leather, and, when old and rigid, were easily ruptured by the fermentation of new wine.
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