What does Tribe teach about nicodemus?
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 Nicodemus starts with a simple observation: he was a man standing in front of something genuinely new and he had no container for it. Brian used the story from John 3 to put flesh on what Jesus meant when he said new wine cannot go into an old wineskin. Nicodemus came to Jesus at night, acknowledged the miraculous signs he could not explain, and yet kept trying to fit what Jesus was saying into categories he already held. Jesus never softened the truth to make it fit. He took several runs at the same reality from different angles, including the image of wind, but he never offered to pour a little new wine into the old wineskin. He pointed Nicodemus toward needing something new entirely.
The definition the congregation landed on together is that the wineskin represents a person's capacity to receive and adapt to a new work of the Holy Spirit in their life. Before a person receives Jesus, the spirit is dead, and the old wineskin of trying to relate to God through religion or law simply cannot hold what Jesus is offering. Nicodemus was not mocked for struggling with this. But the challenge in Jesus's words was patient and real at the same time.
Brian ran what he called a stretch test, naming things that reveal whether a wineskin is soft and supple or brittle and used up, whether there is room for the Holy Spirit to move in power today, whether the full picture of Jesus fits, not only the gentle lamb but the lion of Judah. The point the room kept returning to is that a new wineskin is not meant to hoard what it holds. It is meant to pour out. Brian says, "A new wineskin will cost you."
Taught from John 3:1-21 · Matthew 9:14-17 · Luke 5:33-39 · 2 Corinthians 5:17 · John 19:38-42
“If this is a place where a culture is created that we wear masks and that we can't be real and vulnerable, heaven forbid that this place be a museum of exhibits for saints.”
From New Wineskin, New Capacity
The passage taught · 2 Corinthians 5:17
17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- November 18, 2024 New Wineskin, New Capacity Brian Hunter walks through John 3 and the story of Nicodemus to ask one pointed question: what is the condition of your wineskin, and is there room for what God is pouring out?
- November 17, 2024 New Wine Deeper Explained A Tribe Church sermon on Jesus's teaching about new wine and wineskins, exploring what it means to stay open to the Holy Spirit's work in your life.