Two men enter, one man leaves.

In one paragraph

This was another week in the multi-week series Tribe has been working through around one central idea: being with Jesus sets us free from the constraints of an old religious wineskin. Brian opened the floor to the congregation before teaching, and the room did a lot of the heavy lifting together. Brian started by asking the room to connect the dots between the passage they had just read and the...

Read together

1. 2 Corinthians 2:14-15 read aloud to explain why the Pharisees perceived Jesus as a threat, illustrating that the message of Jesus is either the fragrance of life or of death
2. James 4:2-7 read aloud to show how desire, pride, and friendship with the world make one an enemy of God, and to contrast grace given to the humble with opposition toward the proud
3. Proverbs 14:12 referenced briefly as 'there is a way that seems right to man but ends in' death, in contrast to surrendering to Jesus
4. Galatians 2:20 quoted as 'I have been crucified with Christ, so there is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me' to illustrate dying to self so Christ can live through you

Talk about it

1. Brian talked about how the Pharisees were seeing everything Jesus did but not tasting any of it, while the disciples were actually experiencing Jesus firsthand. Where in your own life have you found yourself only watching what God is doing rather than stepping into it yourself?
2. Several people in the room suggested that the Pharisees reacted the way they did partly out of fear, and partly because Jesus was a direct threat to the life and identity they had carefully built. Can you think of a time when something God was doing felt threatening to you rather than freeing, and what was underneath that reaction?
3. Brian read from 2 Corinthians 2 where Paul says the message of Jesus is either the fragrance of life or the fragrance of death, with no neutral middle ground. How does that land with you, and have you experienced a moment when following Jesus shifted from feeling like one of those things to the other?
4. Brian used the example of a worn-out dad sitting in the driveway and praying for Jesus to be a good husband and father through him rather than trying to muscle through on his own. What does that kind of surrender actually look like in a situation you are facing right now?
5. Brian described communion as Jesus choosing the cup of a marriage proposal and saying he would not drink from it again until he drinks it new with us in the kingdom. How does thinking about communion in those terms change the way you approach it?