What does Tribe teach about christmas prophecy?
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 Christmas prophecy starts with a challenge to read Isaiah 9 honestly rather than sentimentally. When Brian Hunter walked the congregation through Isaiah 9:1-7 on the Sunday before Christmas 2024, he asked everyone in the room to hold three questions at once for each verse: has this already been fulfilled, is it being fulfilled right now, or does it point to something still coming? That framework, he said, is the most honest way to handle prophetic writing, and it keeps Christmas from collapsing into a warm feeling disconnected from history and future reality.
Brian worked the prophecy outward from its geography. The regions of Zebulun and Naphtali that Isaiah names were dismissed territory in Jesus' day, yet that is exactly where Jesus came from. The Pharisees in John 7:52 said no prophet ever comes from Galilee, while Isaiah 9:1 was sitting right in front of them. That blindness became a thread through the whole teaching. Verse two, "the people who walk in darkness will see a great light," opened into a reflection on what it actually means to encounter Jesus rather than simply know about him intellectually. Paul's blinding on the road to Damascus was the sharpest example: the most educated religious mind of his era, confronted with how little he could actually see. Brian was clear that this is not condemnation. As he put it, "For anyone that has not surrendered their life to Jesus, the most compassionate thing I can tell you is that you are blind, and you don't even know it." The light of Isaiah 9:2 is offered as a cure, not a verdict.
The teaching also refused to let the prophecy stop at the manger. Brian held together multiple layers of fulfillment on verse three, including the literal growth of the land of Israel since 1948 and the ongoing harvest of people coming to faith, without forcing one reading to cancel the other. The government described in Isaiah 9:6-7, he said, points to a literal future kingdom that Jesus will establish on earth at his return. The whole arc, from the darkness named in verse one to the unending government of verse seven, is a single coherent promise: "Right in the midst of your greatest, deepest darkness, God the Father, out of his great love, says that is right where I want to put my light."
Taught from Isaiah 9:1-7 · John 7:52 · Philippians 4:19
“For anyone that has not surrendered their life to Jesus, the most compassionate thing I can tell you is that you are blind, and you don't even know it.”
From A Government That Will Never End
The passage taught · Isaiah 9:1-7
1 But there shall be no more gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time, he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali; but in the latter time he has made it glorious, by the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.
2 The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who lived in the land of the shadow of death, on them the light has shined.
3 You have multiplied the nation. You have increased their joy. They rejoice before you according to the joy in harvest, as men rejoice when they divide the plunder.
4 For the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, you have broken as in the day of Midian.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- December 23, 2024 A Government That Will Never End Brian Hunter walks through Isaiah 9 verse by verse, asking whether each prophecy is past, present, or still coming, and why it matters this Christmas.