What does Tribe teach about eternal reward?
Drawn from the messages 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 eternal reward starts with a distinction that many Christians have never been handed: salvation cannot be earned, but what a person does after they are saved shapes what they receive in eternity. Brian Hunter has built the series around 2 John 1:8, where the reader is told to be diligent so they receive a full reward. The grammar of that verse is the anchor. If a full reward is possible, then so is a partial reward, and so is no reward at all. The line Brian keeps returning to is this: "You can't work for salvation, but your work determines your reward."
The series moves into 1 Corinthians 3:10-15, where Paul describes every believer's work being tested by fire at what Brian calls the bema seat judgment. That fire is not about whether a person is saved. The builder survives either way. What the fire tests is whether the work was built from gold, silver, and precious stones, or from wood, hay, and straw. To get at what wood, hay, and straw actually means, Brian turned to the phrase the author of Hebrews uses: dead works. Work done entirely from a person's own effort and strength, no matter how godly it looks from the outside, is dead before God. Brian says, "What God condemns is not only our bad deeds, but our best deeds done apart from Christ." The linchpin issue, traced through Matthew 7 where Jesus says he never knew the people listing their miracles, is relationship. Work that is not rooted in an ongoing, intimate connection with Jesus is precisely what counts for nothing.
The teaching also pushes back against letting that truth become an excuse for doing nothing. The risk of flesh-driven work does not cancel the call to act. Small acts of obedience matter, because as Brian has put it, "Every moment matters when forever is your measure." The series is working toward what faithful, Spirit-sourced work actually looks like, but the ground it has laid first is honest: before talking about what lasts, a person has to be willing to let what is already built get tested.
Taught from 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 · 2 John 1:8 · Hebrews 6:1 · Matthew 7:21-23 · Matthew 6:19-21
“What God condemns is not only our bad deeds, but our best deeds done apart from Christ.”
From Gold, Silver, and Precious Stones
The passage taught · 1 Corinthians 3:10-15
10 According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another builds on it. But let each man be careful how he builds on it.
11 For no one can lay any other foundation than that which has been laid, which is Jesus Christ.
12 But if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or stubble;
13 each man’s work will be revealed. For the Day will declare it, because it is revealed in fire; and the fire itself will test what sort of work each man’s work is.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- September 1, 2025 Gold, Silver, and Precious Stones Brian Hunter walks through what Scripture calls "dead works," asking whether the things we build for God are powered by his Spirit or just our own effort.
- August 25, 2025 Saved. Now What？ A Wyoming church explores what it means to build a life that lasts, asking what kind of work survives when everything temporary is burned away.
- August 18, 2025 Work and Reward Brian Hunter preaches on work and reward from 2 John, explaining why salvation is a free gift and how Christians can pursue a full eternal reward through obedience.