Matthew 13:51

Have ye understood all these things? They say unto him, Yea. And he said unto them, Therefore every scribe who hath been made a disciple to the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, who bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old.

Both ancient and modern commentators refer these words to the Old and New Testaments. Victorinus said, "Things new and old - the new, the evangelical words of the apostles; the old, the precepts of the law and the prophets."[7] Dummelow identified the old and the new as "the old truths which God had long made known to the Jews, as well as the new truth declared by Christ."[8]

There is another meaning in this place, and it is contained in the unceasing wonder that the same things can be both old and new simultaneously! What is older, or newer, than conversion? the birth of a child? a wedding? or the manner in which some soul reacts to a crisis? What is newer, or older, than the great thoughts of the Eternal God which men of each passing generation are privileged to think after him, by means of the Scriptures? It is certainly not amiss to see this "new and old" aspect of every sermon. This suggests that teachers and preachers should adapt messages to hearers.

[7] Victorinus from the Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. VII, p. 345.

[8] J. R. Dummelow, One Volume Commentary (New York: Macmillan Company, 1937), p. 675.