What does Tribe teach about doing vs being?
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 doing versus being starts with a single Hebrew word. Joy, speaking in Pastor Brian's absence, opened with an honest admission: her instinct when she hears the word obedience is to find more things to do. That instinct, she said, is exactly the problem. The biblical word *shema*, which sits at the heart of both the Old Testament command to obey and the famous passage in Deuteronomy 6, carries listening and obeying as two sides of the same coin. Most English translations render it as "obey," which hides the listening half entirely. The teaching held that you cannot have one without the other, and that genuine obedience begins somewhere before action.
The 1 Kings 19 passage, where Elijah encounters God not in wind or earthquake or fire but in a gentle whisper, gave this idea its practical shape. A whisper requires quiet, closeness, and full attention. Joy drew three instructions from verse 11: go out, meaning leave your normal rhythms; stand, meaning be still; and be on the mountain, which she connected to the idea of solitude as a state with no outside inputs at all. The New Testament presses the same point. James 1:22-24 compares a person who hears the word but does not act on it to someone who glances in a mirror and immediately forgets what they look like, and the congregation was asked honestly which category they were actually modeling for the people around them.
The practical suggestion was deliberately small. Sit with a pen and paper, take a breath to quiet down, and ask God a specific question. Joy said she thinks people overcomplicate this, waiting for something dramatic, when the invitation is simply to be still and attentive first. The doing, the teaching implied, flows from the being, not the other way around.
Taught from Deuteronomy 6:4-5 · 1 Kings 19:9-13 · James 1:22-24 · Exodus 19:5-6
The passage taught · 1 Kings 19:9-13
9 He came to a cave there, and camped there; and behold, Yahweh’s word came to him, and he said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
10 He said, “I have been very jealous for Yahweh, the God of Armies; for the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.”
11 He said, “Go out, and stand on the mountain before Yahweh.” Behold, Yahweh passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before Yahweh; but Yahweh was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake; but Yahweh was not in the earthquake.
12 After the earthquake a fire passed; but Yahweh was not in the fire. After the fire, there was a still small voice.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- February 4, 2024 The Simplicity of Listening A teaching on the Hebrew word "shema," showing why real obedience to God begins with listening, and how to create the quiet needed to hear His voice.