What does Tribe teach about religious legalism?
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 religious legalism starts with two scenes from Matthew 12: the disciples picking grain on the Sabbath and Jesus healing a man's withered hand in the very synagogue where the Pharisees were watching. Brian walked both scenes carefully, noting that the disciples were not breaking the law at all but were gleaning from field edges in exactly the way the Old Testament permitted for those in need. The Pharisees' problem was not that the law had been violated. Their problem was that their whole religious system had no room left to stretch. Brian described it as an old wineskin: a container that had become so rigid it could only insist Jesus conform to it rather than be remade by him.
The heart of what Brian kept returning to is that time spent with Jesus produces freedom, and that freedom will always look suspicious to a religious wineskin. The Pharisees plotted to kill Jesus immediately after the healing, and Brian connected that same accusing spirit to Revelation 12, where Satan is described as the one who accuses the brothers day and night. He said the accusation works the same way now, telling people who are beginning to walk in real freedom that they have no right to it, pulling them back toward guilt and shame with reminders of their failures. Brian named it plainly: "That dirty devil, he is a liar. He's a liar."
What Tribe teaches is that the answer to religious legalism is not better rule-keeping and not the absence of all structure. It is proximity to Jesus. Brian made the point that knowing a great deal about Jesus and actually spending time with him are two different things, and the difference shows up in a person's life. In his words, "I really don't care how much you know about Jesus. But when I see evidence that you've spent time with Jesus resulting in a transformed life, that gets my attention." The freedom that comes from that kind of relationship will sometimes look like lawbreaking to people still living inside an old wineskin. Brian's word to the congregation was that following Jesus is where real freedom lives, whatever it looks like from the outside.
Taught from Matthew 12:1-14 · Revelation 12:10-11 · John 4:24
“I really don't care how much you know about Jesus. But when I see evidence that you've spent time with Jesus resulting in a transformed life, that gets my attention.”
From Breaking the Law
The passage taught · John 4:24
24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- January 20, 2025 Breaking the Law Brian Hunter walks through Matthew 12 to show how time with Jesus stretches our capacity for freedom and breaks the grip of religious rules that have no life in them.
- January 19, 2025 Breaking The Law Brian Hunter walks through Matthew 12 to show how time with Jesus breaks the grip of religious legalism and leads to real, transformed freedom.