New Wine and Old Skins
“You can't teach an old dog new tricks.”
“He's old and stuck in his ways.”
“She's never going to change.”
There is an ingrained, all-too-often-proved-true, prejudice that when we get older we can't, or won't, change any more. This is despite some great examples in the Bible — like Abraham, Sarah, Moses, and Caleb and that's just the first six books — and some great passages of Scripture that challenge us to keep on changing to become more like Jesus:
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day (2 Corinthians 4:16).
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate [or reflect] the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:17-18).
Two of my favorite people in the Bible are old in years, but fresh and new..