What does Tribe teach about reading the bible?
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 reading the Bible starts with the conviction that Scripture is the most recognizable way God speaks. Pastor Brian Hunter built this out in a message on Father's Day, walking the congregation through several passages to show what the Bible actually does in a person's life: it teaches, warns, corrects, equips, and carries what he called mega and precious promises. The critical thing he pressed was that those promises are real and large, but they are not automatic. You have to take hold of them. He put it plainly: "The promises of God are always guaranteed, but they are not automatic." Familiarity with God's voice, he said, works like familiarity with anything else. It comes from time spent in the Word, not from being naturally gifted.
The same seriousness about reading Scripture carefully runs through Connor's teaching on the golden calf in Exodus 32. The congregation read the whole chapter together, passing the mic around the room, and the things they noticed in the text drove the entire message. Small details mattered: the word Elohim versus Yahweh in neighboring verses, Aaron's attempt to fold God's name back over something already corrupted, the leveling-up quality of obedience where the people failed the easy ask first. Connor's point was that a careless or selective reading of the Bible leaves people with a partial picture of God, and a partial picture, even with the right name attached to it, is still a distortion. Quoting Timothy Keller, he said, "If your God never disagrees with you, you might just be worshiping an idealized version of yourself."
Together these messages treat reading the Bible not as a devotional habit that makes you feel close to God, but as the primary way you keep the picture of God accurate. Both Brian and Connor pressed the congregation to actually sit with what the text says, not to rush past details or smooth over the hard parts, because the distance between what Scripture says and what feels comfortable is often exactly where the correction is.
Taught from 2 Timothy 3:15-16 · 2 Peter 1:3-4 · Exodus 32 · 1 Corinthians 10:11 · Romans 15:4
“If your God never disagrees with you, you might just be worshiping an idealized version of yourself.”
From Little G Gods
The passage taught · Exodus 32
1 When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we don’t know what has become of him.”
2 Aaron said to them, “Take off the golden rings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them to me.”
3 All the people took off the golden rings which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron.
4 He received what they handed him, fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made it a molten calf. Then they said, “These are your gods, Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt.”
World English Bible
The messages that teach on it
- November 3, 2025 Little G Gods Connor leads Tribe through Exodus 32, asking what happens when we worship a wrong or incomplete picture of God, and how to get that picture right.
- June 25, 2023 Marked by His Word Brian Hunter walks through how God speaks through Scripture, why his promises are guaranteed but not automatic, and how to build the habit of hearing his voice.
Mentioned along the way
- November 2, 2025 Get the Picture? Connor leads Tribe through Exodus 32, exploring what a distorted image of God looks like and how Scripture, community, and honest wrestling can correct it.