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. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins (Mark 2:22).
The “Ten Commandments” are followed in Deuteronomy by this call: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”
That “the Lord is one” may certainly mean there is only one God. But it may also mean this God is consistent, unchangeable, unique. He is the complete package, the “real deal.” No one else compares. He’s not a mashup of the gods of all cultures, an alloy who takes the shape of human imaginings. He has but one nature and one character and one history.
No wonder this unalloyed God expects unalloyed love: “with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”
The heart is the seat of our intellect, how we think. The soul comprises all else that we are, emotions, character, desire, nature, habits etc. And then, there’s “strength,” (sometimes translated “possessions”).
Love for God should pour from ALL we think, ALL we are, and ALL we have. Total. Uncompromised. Read that with Mark 2. We compromise the call and life of Christ with an old life. Successful discipleship means everything must be changed. The old must, in totality, be exchanged for new. Anything less ruins God’s purpose for each of us – and for us all.