Centuries ago, wine was stored in leather wineskins rather than bottles. Animal skins were dried and cured until the leather could be shaped into containers to hold wine. When the wineskins were new, they were soft and pliable, but as they aged, they often lost their elasticity; they wouldn’t give anymore. They would become hardened and set, and they couldn’t expand. If a person poured new wine in an old wineskin, the container would burst and the wine would be lost. Interestingly, when Jesus wanted to encourage his followers to enlarge their visions, he reminded them, “You can’t put new wine into old wineskins.” Jesus was saying you can’t have a larger life with restricted attitudes and thoughts. That lesson is still relevant today. We are set in our ways, bound by our perspectives, and stuck in our thinking. God is trying to do something new, but unless we’re willing to expand and enlarge our vision, we’ll miss his opportunities for us.
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