What does Tribe teach about samuel?
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 Samuel begins with the world he was born into. Amanda Lack, who is on staff at Tribe, walked the congregation through the period of the Judges, when there was no king, every man did what was right in his own eyes, the priesthood under Eli was corrupt, and words from God had grown rare. Against that dim backdrop, God called a boy who had been prayed into existence by a faithful mother, raised near the Ark of the Covenant, and shaped by private faithfulness long before any public moment arrived. As Amanda put it, "Before Samuel is ever called to a public ministry, he is marked by private obedience."
The heart of the teaching was Samuel's posture when God called. God spoke three times before Samuel understood what was happening, and Amanda read that repetition not as God's frustration but as his patience, consistent with how he confirms his word throughout scripture and still does now through friends, scripture, and the same theme surfacing from multiple directions. Eli's guidance was itself part of that patience, a piece of community helping Samuel identify a voice he had not yet learned to recognize. Amanda drew a firm line between hearing and listening: as she put it, "Hearing and listening are very different. You can hear your mom call you to dinner while you're playing video games, but are you listening to her?" Listening, she said, is when the whole posture of a person is oriented toward the one speaking.
The phrase at the center of everything was Samuel's response: "Here I am, your servant is listening." Amanda noted that the same posture of real availability to God appears in the mouths of Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Isaiah and Ananias across scripture, always at a moment of genuine surrender. God did not give Samuel the message until Samuel's posture was right, and that was the pattern Amanda kept returning to throughout the message.
Taught from 1 Samuel 3:1-21 · 1 Samuel 1 · Judges 21:25 · Psalm 103 · John 10:27
“Hearing and listening are very different. You can hear your mom call you to dinner while you're playing video games, but are you listening to her?”
From “Here I Am” – Samuel's Obedience
The passage taught · 1 Kings 21:25
25 But there was no one like Ahab, who sold himself to do that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- May 11, 2026 “Here I Am” – Samuel's Obedience Amanda Lack teaches on 1 Samuel 3, tracing Samuel's call from a young boy sleeping near the ark to a prophet whose every word came to pass through private obedience.
- May 10, 2026 "Here I Am" A preteen boy, a sleeping prophet, and a God who kept calling. This Mother's Day sermon from 1 Samuel 3 explores what it means to say "Here I am, Lord, your servant is listening."