What does Tribe teach about darkness and light?
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 darkness and light starts with a conviction that darkness is not a metaphor to explain away but a real condition that settles over people and cultures, and that the Bible takes it seriously from the beginning. Brian traced the image through the plague of Exodus 10, where a darkness so thick it could be felt left people paralyzed and withdrawn, and he drew a straight line from that story to the present moment. His point was not that things are uniquely terrible but that the particular combination of geopolitical pressure, information collapse, and cultural confusion represents a genuine intensification of something old, and that the biblical response is just as direct now as it was then.
The center of the teaching is Isaiah 9:1-2, where the prophet, writing centuries before Jesus arrived, described a great light breaking into a region of deep darkness. Brian held the wonder of that image and then carried it forward to John 8:12, where Jesus claimed that title for himself: "I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won't have to walk in darkness because you will have the light that leads to life." Brian noted that even with the light present, walking in darkness remains an option, which means following Jesus is an active, ongoing choice rather than a passive condition.
From there the teaching landed on Matthew 5, where the church itself is called to be the light. Brian was careful not to frame this as cause for despair or withdrawal. As he put it, "As this present age gets darker and darker, all it does is cause the illumination of the beauty of Emmanuel, God with us, to shine all the brighter." The practical weight of the message was this: the response to deep darkness is not to retreat, as the Egyptians did, but to move toward people and carry the light to them.
Taught from Isaiah 9:1-2 · John 8:12 · Exodus 10:21-23 · Matthew 5:14-16 · Luke 1:79
“As this present age gets darker and darker, all it does is cause the illumination of the beauty of Emmanuel, God with us, to shine all the brighter.”
From A Great Light in the Land of Deep Darkness
The passage taught · Exodus 10:21-23
21 Yahweh said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward the sky, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even darkness which may be felt.”
22 Moses stretched out his hand toward the sky, and there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt for three days.
23 They didn’t see one another, and nobody rose from his place for three days; but all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- December 18, 2023 A Great Light in the Land of Deep Darkness A Wyoming pastor traces the "light of the world" from Isaiah's prophecy through the Exodus plagues to Jesus, asking what that light demands of us now.