GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
LUKE 5:36
36 He told them a parable:
Luke calls what follows a parable, and I think it’s appropriate to label all three of the sayings in verses 36-39 as separate parables about the same subject.
A. A new patch on an old garment (36)
B. New wine into old wineskins (37-38)
C. Those used to old wine won’t want the new (39)
Some refuse to classify these sayings as parables but insist on calling them proverbs (Trench, Parables p. 7). But since the word “parable” is used here by Luke (for the first time), it would be foolish to change Luke’s word to fit our meaning. We should adjust our meaning to fit Luke’s word.
A parable (παραβολή) is literally one thing set beside another, for comparison. There is no definition of a parable given in Scripture; the word is simply used, especially in the New Testament or more specifically in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke (there are no parables in John). In the Bible, a parable is an illustration of the spiritual using the natural. The ‘spiritual’ part is a doctrine or truth Jesus wants to explain. The ‘natural’ is the story or comparison he uses. I think that the three comparisons which follow are too long to be labeled as proverbs, but whether or not they are parables in the traditional sense, they are to be applied in exactly the same way.
A parable is an illustration of the spiritual using the natural.
As we read these three brief parables, we must not forget that they are illustrations—they are not the front-line, as it were, of doctrinal teaching. Jesus and his Apostles teach us with clear words, but there were times when Jesus wanted to further his instruction with such an illustration to make his point more memorable. In every parable, there is a single most important point of comparison. In these three short parables, the point is clear because there is not much story to cloud the issue.
“No one tears a patch from a new garment and puts it on an old one. If he does, he will tear the new garment, and the old one will not fit with the patch from the new.
Jesus’ parable is about two garments, one old and the other new. A patch is needed on the old one. Who would tear up the new one to patch the old? Just get rid of the old and wear the new one. This parable has nothing at all to do with the plight of poor people who need to patch old clothes—the poor, like anyone else, would not tear up a new article to patch an old one. The point is not the patch. The point is that the new garment is the one to be worn. The teaching of Jesus—Christianity—is the new garment.
But the Christian must be careful not to take the image of the garment in the parable and try to shoehorn in other things from the Bible about clothing, just because the context seems to be about clothing. I have listened to Bible classes get carried away with this sort of thing. Jesus is not making any point here about the robe of our righteousness (Isaiah 61:10). No, this is about Jesus’ new teaching, and the attempt by some of John’s disciples to wedge some of Jesus’ teachings into the old (yet in some ways new) oral traditions of the Jews. Could some of Jesus’s doctrine, they wonder, be mixed in with the teachings of the Pharisees? Jesus’ answer is: Not at all.
For one thing, in a garment, the new patch will pull away and it will just make the tear worse. This is the application Matthew and Mark record (Matthew 9:16, Mark 2:21). But here in Luke, we hear more of the Lord’s point. There is another side of making a new patch: To make it, the new garment has to be torn, ruining the new one, too. This is an important point about Christianity (which, recall, is the point of the parable). You can’t tear a little bit of Christianity out and try to combine it with some other religion. It’s not compatible.
The word I’ve translated “will (not) fit” (NIV “will [not] match”) is symphōnéō (συμϕωνέω), which is related to our word ‘symphony.’ Sounds, of course, can harmonize musically (“a harmony [συμϕωνέω] of flutes and music,” Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 1275, 24). Also, empty jars can sound alike as long as they stay empty (“For the empty vessel that is placed with the other empty ones is not broken; they match one another,” Shepherd of Hermas Hm 11,13). But the word also refers to doctrine: “The words of the prophets are in agreement [συμϕωνέω] with this” (Acts 15:15). And this is the point Jesus is making: The old doctrine will not be in agreement with the new. They won’t harmonize.
The old torn garment of the Pharisee’s work-righteousness which had been tried out for size by some of John’s disciples wasn’t in harmony with the Old Testament law of Moses, let alone the new. They had added to it. They thought they were making things better, more holy, but it wasn’t God’s idea of holiness; it was their own. And it’s never, ever, a good idea to tell God that you’ve got a better idea than he has.
It wasn’t in harmony with Moses, and it wasn’t in harmony with Jesus’ gospel of forgiveness and freedom, either. Christianity cannot be dropped in with other religions and be commanded to coexist with them. Would such an ecumenical group love to hear a general confession of sin? Something like: “O Lord God, you created the universe in Six Days, and we have sinned against you in our thoughts, words, and actions. We beg your forgiveness, and know that we have forgiveness and salvation through the blood of Jesus Christ alone”? There can be no lesser prayer for a Christian, and such a prayer would cause a Unitarian, a Mormon, a Muslim, a Jew, and certainly an atheist, to gnash their teeth and fly into a rage.
This is the new garment—the doctrine of Jesus Christ crucified for our sins. Don’t tear it up to patch some old worn-out and useless thing, no matter how comfortable it once was. Wear the new, and know that you are part of his new creation.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Archives by Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: http://www.wlchapel.org/worship/daily-devotion/
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota