What does Tribe teach about birth pains?
Drawn from the message where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At Tribe, the teaching on birth pains begins with Jesus's own words in Matthew 24. Pastor Brian walked the congregation through what Jesus describes as the first broad phase leading up to his return: a period marked by wars, rumors of wars, false messiahs, famines, and earthquakes, which Jesus himself names in verse 8 as birth pains. Brian was careful to hold both the literal and the broader meaning of those signs in tension. A false messiah, he noted, does not have to be a religious fanatic making videos online. It could be any philosophy or place, even a ski town, that promises to be your everything.
The framework Brian used to get there was the image of a hat rack. Your hat is what you believe about a given topic, and the rack it hangs on is your whole worldview. The principle of the biggest hook is that whoever holds the most compelling narrative is most likely to get your belief, and sometimes a belief about the end times goes unchallenged not because it is right but because it is the only narrative a person has ever heard. Brian pressed on that directly, because passages about these signs have caused real anxiety for people in the Tribe family. He pointed to a woman who had avoided Daniel, Revelation, and passages like Matthew 24 because they kept her up at night, and said that pressing into those passages, reading commentaries, and building a biblically grounded theology of Jesus's return was what finally replaced her anxiety with confidence and joy.
That replacement of fear with clarity is the point the teaching keeps coming back to. Brian framed the whole exercise the way a good parent prepares a child for what is coming, so the child is not blindsided. The birth pains Jesus describes are not meant to produce dread but to orient His people. As Brian put it, "We will not be hiding under rocks and in caves and in bunkers with our gold and green beans and guns. The gospel will be advancing."
Taught from Matthew 24:1-43 · 1 Thessalonians and 2 Thessalonians · Daniel 9, 10, 11 · Revelation 3:10 · Hebrews 12:27-28
“The enemy would love to lull us into complacency with this verse right here by saying, don't worry your pretty little head about it.”
From The Return of Jesus
The passage taught · Colossians 3:2
2 Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- July 29, 2024 The Return of Jesus Brian Hunter walks through Matthew 24, mapping Jesus's own words about birth pains, tribulation, and his return, and why understanding these things builds confidence rather than fear.