What does Tribe teach about new wineskin?

At Tribe, the teaching on new wineskins starts with a definition Brian Hunter worked out with the congregation over several weeks. The new wine represents Jesus coming to fulfill the law and establish a new covenant, and more broadly, any new way God is moving. The wineskin represents a person's capacity to receive and adapt to that new work. A brittle wineskin does not mean a person is bad or far from God. It means their existing assumptions, traditions, or theological categories have gone stiff, and what Jesus is pouring out simply will not fit inside them. Brian made the point plainly: you cannot just add Jesus to your life around the edges, because as he put it, "You cannot add Jesus to your life because if you try to fit him and his ways and following him into just adding it into your life, it will wreck your life."

The cost of getting a new wineskin was the center of gravity in the third week of the series. Brian pointed to how wineskins were actually made. A stone jar or a clay jar costs nothing in terms of life, but a wineskin required an animal to die. That is not accidental. The vessel that holds new wine is only ever produced through death, and Brian applied that directly to the life of a follower of Jesus: a new wineskin is purchased through death to old mindsets, tightly held traditions, and previously held theological assumptions. He put it this way: "New wineskins don't come for free, it will cost you something." Mark 10 gave him two figures to make the point concrete. The rich young ruler had kept the law since childhood, but when Jesus offered him one drop of new wine, the man's wineskin could not stretch to hold it, and he walked away sorrowful. Bartimaeus, just a few verses later, threw aside his cloak and ran toward Jesus without stopping to pick anything back up. The contrast was deliberate: one man felt the cost and turned away, the other paid it without hesitating.

Brian was also careful to note that God does not force the issue. As he told the congregation, "He is wise and he is economical. He will offer you new wine, but he's not going to continue to pour new wine into your old wineskin because he knows that you just can't handle it." The invitation is real, but it waits on willingness. Nicodemus in John 3 illustrates the same pattern from a different angle: Jesus did not mock him for struggling, but he also never offered to pour a little new wine into the old container. He pointed Nicodemus toward needing something entirely new.

Taught from Luke 5:33-39 · Mark 10:17-28 · Mark 10:46 · Matthew 9:14-17 · John 3:1-21