What does Tribe teach about new wineskins?
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 new wineskins starts with a simple distinction: the new wine is any fresh way God is moving, a new revelation or a facet of his character coming alive, and the wineskin is a person's capacity to receive and adapt to that movement. Brian has been clear from the beginning of this series that new wineskins are not free or handed out. Something has to die before one can be made, specifically old mindsets, old patterns, and preconceived notions. The flesh cannot be tidied up or shelved; it has to be crucified, and anything that is not crucified will keep resurfacing.
The warning Brian draws from John 8 is where the teaching gets urgent. Jesus was speaking not to obvious religious opponents but to people who already believed in him, which makes the danger personal rather than distant. The crowd in that passage moved from reasonable questions to picking up stones, and Brian traces that escalation as a picture of what an old wineskin does under pressure from new wine. It does not just resist. It breaks, and when it breaks, both the skin and the wine are lost. The person who adds Jesus to an existing life rather than surrendering the old one is not making a small adjustment; that is the setup for the split. Brian puts it plainly: "If you hold so tightly to old ways that there is no room in your heart for a new move of God in your life, you are in jeopardy of even losing the sweetness of what He did in the past."
The other side of that warning is a real promise. Brian said, "There is nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing that we can bring to the foot of the cross and crucify that we will not experience resurrection, abundant life on the other side." The cost of a new wineskin is death to the old, but what follows that death is not loss. The teaching holds that surrender and crucifixion are the very things that open a person up to receive what God is pouring out.
Taught from Luke 5:33-39 · Matthew 9:14-17 · John 8:31-47 · 2 Corinthians 10:4-5
“If you hold so tightly to old ways that there is no room in your heart for a new move of God in your life, you are in jeopardy of even losing the sweetness of what he did in the past.”
From A Warning About New Wine
The passage taught · 2 Corinthians 10:4-5
4 for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the throwing down of strongholds,
5 throwing down imaginations and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ;
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- December 9, 2024 A Warning About New Wine Brian Hunter warns that clinging to old mindsets when God pours out something new risks losing both the old and the new. A sermon on John 8 and wineskins.
- December 8, 2024 Warnings About New Wine Jesus warns that clinging to old mindsets blocks what God is doing now. This sermon explores what it costs to receive something new from him.
- October 28, 2024 New Wineskins for Sale Brian Hunter reflects on Tribe's eight years, using Jesus' parable of new wine and wineskins to explore what the Holy Spirit has been building in this small Jackson Hole church.
- October 27, 2024 New Wineskins for Sale Brian Hunter reflects on Tribe Church's eight years, exploring Jesus's teaching on new wine and wineskins, and what it means to stay spiritually prepared in changing times.