Everything Old is New Again

"What is this? A new teaching with authority!" That was the reaction of the crowd when Jesus healed a man with an unclean spirit (Mark 1:27). Of course, Jesus' teaching was really nothing "new." It was the fulfillment of everything to which the law and the prophets had pointed. Yet, he amazed the people in the synagogue on that particular Sabbath day because "he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes" (Mark 1:22). What the people saw and heard in Jesus was more than mere words. But since they had never seen the Word brought to life in their hearing and before their eyes, they received the teaching of this carpenter from Nazareth as something "new."

In Athens, Paul's preaching of Jesus and the resurrection was, likewise, received by the Athenians as some "new teaching" (Acts 17:19). But, as Paul explained, Jesus and the resurrection were not only the fulfillment of the hope of the Jews, but also the full revelation of the truth which had been veiled even in the myriad religions of the Gentiles. Paul was not offering the Athenians some strange "new teaching." Rather, he was shining a new light, the light of Jesus and the resurrection, on their oldest and most cherished hopes and dreams.

Centuries later, John and Charles Wesley were accused of spreading "new doctrines." Yet, all they had done was rediscover one of the most essential doctrines of primitive, Scriptural Christianity: holiness of heart and life. The movement which they founded sought not to create some "new" sect but, rather, to breathe new life into what had become a lifeless, old, institutional religion.

The "new wine" that is flowing in the church today is not the result of some "new teaching." Rather, it is God's Spirit moving among his people yet again, making everything that is "old" seem "new" again. For those still trapped in the death throes of American Protestantism, this present work of renewal may seem foreign, both spiritually and geographically (with the strongest winds of revival blowing in our direction from Asia, Africa, and South America). Evangelicals within these declining institutions (which now, apparently, includes even the once thriving Southern Baptist Convention) have fallen victim to a hopelessly myopic vision on the part of their aging leadership.

We need to raise our scope above the old muddled morass of four decades of false hopes invested in the human strategies of legislative agendas and political networking to see the new day that is dawning on the horizon. The renewal of the church--the whole Church of Jesus Christ--is the work of God and it is happening in a way none of us could have imagined.

"Behold, I am making all things new," God promises from his throne (Revelation 21:5). That promise is coming true before our very eyes. Everything old is new again. We need only open our eyes and see the marvelous work that God is doing in our midst.