Parable of the Wineskins
Life of Jesus · Draft · BSB
Content revision: 73b883de67ba6d0c · No editorial review date recorded
Date: Ministry in Galilee. A guided comparison of Gospel accounts, not a measured calendar or a claim that every parallel follows the same sequence.
Jesus illustrates the problem of mismatched practices with a new patch on an old garment and new wine in old wineskins. Luke adds a saying about a drinker’s preference for old wine.
Read these illustrations with the preceding question about fasting. They should not become a blanket claim that everything Jewish is obsolete; Luke’s additional saying also complicates a simple equation of new with good and old with bad.
Primary Scripture
9:16 No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. For the patch will pull away from the garment, and a worse tear will result.
9:17 Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will spill, and the wineskins will be ruined. Instead, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”
2:21 No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the new piece will pull away from the old, and a worse tear will result.
2:22 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. Instead, new wine is poured into new wineskins.”
5:36 He also told them a parable: “No one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and sews it on an old one. If he does, he will tear the new garment as well, and the patch from the new will not match the old.
5:37 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will spill, and the wineskins will be ruined.
5:38 Instead, new wine is poured into new wineskins.
5:39 And no one after drinking old wine wants new, for he says, ‘The old is better.’”
Related Scripture
Matthew’s statement about fulfilling the Law and Prophets helps prevent an oversimplified reading of the illustrations.
Location evidence
The question and following illustrations have no explicitly named venue. Their placement near the tax collector’s meal does not securely identify a particular Capernaum house.
No event map marker is assigned. Do not infer an exact venue from related places.
For the class
How do the images answer the question that prompted them?
Interpretation and reuse
Narrative order is a reading arrangement, not a proven chronology. Dates retain their stated uncertainty. An identified locality does not establish the exact venue or prove an event. Region extents and routes are illustrative, not surveyed boundaries or ancient roads. Draft material has not completed editorial review.
Record source: theographic (290)
Record source: editorial
Events and places adapted from Theographic Bible Metadata (github.com/robertrouse/theographic-bible-metadata), CC BY-SA 4.0. This adapted data is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Place coordinates from OpenBible.info Bible Geocoding Data, CC BY 4.0.
Teaching stops, summaries and regional extents are original editorial content of this atlas.
Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain. https://berean.bible/licensing.htm