Reflections: 12-12-2007

All Bible citations are taken from New Living Translation, Second Edition (NLT).

Bible Reading Reflections:

• Leviticus 23
  

  God instituted various Jewish festivals to remind the Israelites of God's power among them. In this chapter, the following festivals are to be observed:
  

  • Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread
    
  • Celebration of First Harvest
    
  • The Festival of Harvest
    
  • The Festival of Trumpets
    
  • The Day of Atonement
    
  • The Festival of Shelters
    

• Luke 5
  

  Jesus' first disciples were now being called. Later, Jesus healed a man with leprosy, but despite Jesus' instructions of keeping this private, the latter told everyone who would listen. As a result, vast crowds came to hear from Him preach, with those who came included Pharisees and teachers of religious law. Jesus also healed a paralysed man, challenging the religious elites and proving that the Son of Man has the authority to forgive sins. Later, Jesus called Levi (Matthew) to be his disciple. At one point later, Jesus defended his disciples for not observing fasting.
  

  
  

  • But Jesus often withdrew to the wilderness for prayer. (v. 16)
    
    • Jesus Himself observed prayer. It is not the type of a Pharisaic prayer that everyone in the whole neighbourhood knows what was being prayed about. Jesus himself did this alone and by Himself.
      

      
      

  • Everyone was gripped with great wonder and awe, and they praised God, exclaiming, "We have seen amazing things today!" (v. 26)
    
    • Jesus had indeed performed lots of miracles that day. Many had seen the God's awesome power demonstrated that day. But still, the religious elites found fault with that and with what Jesus claimed Himself to be.
      

      
      

  • [Jesus continued to give them this illustration,] "And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the new wine would burst the wineskins, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. New wine must be stored in new wineskins. But no one who drinks the old wine seems to want the new wine. 'The old wine is just fine,' they say.'" (vv. 37-39)
    
    • Why those who drink the old wine did not want the new wine? Is the latter supposed to be better and sweeter? Why cling in to the old wine? So what does the old wine represent? Are we just talking about winery, or something figurative that winery represents? Something like the Word of God in the Scriptures? Would we then be happy and just be content in that of what we believe in, rejecting fresh new words from God?