The Leadership ChallengeSample

Challenge 36

JESUS: CHALLENGING OLD MINDSETS

READ: Mark 2:1–28

Jesus often addressed people’s limited perceptions and expectations by using analogies and stories from everyday life that help us connect with a spiritual reality. In our text, Jesus talks about His ministry and the good news of God’s kingdom using illustrations about patching a garment and filling wineskins. These were common images in biblical times but may be unfamiliar today. He says no one patches an old garment with a new piece of cloth because when the garment is washed and the new patch shrinks, the patch will rip away. Similarly, new wine isn’t put into old wineskins. Old wine settled and the fermentation process complete. It is safe to be stored even in old wineskins, already stretched to capacity by previous use. But new wine is still fermenting. If you try putting it in old wineskins, the gases released by fermentation will burst the inflexible skins and spill the wine. What is Jesus’s point? With His coming everything changes! The new way of God’s kingdom is incompatible with the old ways of Jewish law and customs. Jesus affirms and explains God’s redemptive plan by challenging false assumptions and teachings that had unnecessarily bound people and obscured the spirit of the law.

What are some of the images in our text that Jesus uses to reveal limited understanding of God’s plans? Sometimes leaders must also challenge old ways of thinking or processes that limit the team’s forward movement. What assumptions and processes might you need to challenge as you lead your team?