What does Tribe teach about sexual purity?
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 sexual purity is rooted in a single verse from 1 Thessalonians 4, where God calls his people to live holy lives rather than impure ones. Pastor Brian built the whole conversation around two words from that verse: holy and called. On holiness, he went to the Greek, where the word means to consecrate, to purify, to set apart and dedicate entirely to the Lord. The point he kept coming back to is that holiness is not about being a different kind of person by nature. It is about being separated from the common and dedicated to God's use, the way you might pull one battery out of a pile and mark it for a single purpose. The danger he named is getting consecrated and then drifting back into the common pile, becoming indistinguishable again.
The teaching on the word called changed the whole tone of the conversation. In the Greek, that word carries the sense of an invitation, not a demand issued from a distance. Brian says, "Religion demands outward adherence. Jesus invites us into relationship that evokes inward holiness." That distinction matters, because it means the call to purity is not God setting a bar and walking away. Brian said plainly, "God has invited us to live holy lives. He does not invite us into holiness without also equipping us to live holy." The passage from 2 Timothy added that a person, unlike a fork, can actually change what they are made of, because Jesus makes someone a new creation. The enemy's strategy, Brian noted, is to remind people of past failures and convince them they have disqualified themselves from being used for anything higher.
All of this starts, in Brian's telling, before you even get to the topic of purity. He drew a line between churchgoers and Christians first, because none of the rest of it follows unless a person has actually met Jesus as Savior, been honest about falling short of God's standard, and brought that burden to the cross. Out of gratitude for a debt paid that they could never pay themselves, the only reasonable response is to offer their whole life back. Sexual purity, in this teaching, is not a rule standing on its own. It grows out of that whole-life offering.
Taught from 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8 · Romans 6:12-14 · 2 Timothy 2:20-21 · Luke 14 · 1 Thessalonians 4:7
“Religion demands outward adherence. Jesus invites us into relationship that evokes inward holiness.”
From Called to Holiness
The passage taught · 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8
1 Finally then, brothers, we beg and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, that you abound more and more.
2 For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus.
3 For this is the will of God: your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality,
4 that each one of you know how to control his own body in sanctification and honor,
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- August 26, 2026 Called to Holiness Brian Hunter walks through 1 Thessalonians 4:7, showing that God's call to holy living is an invitation he equips us for, not a demand we have to meet on our own.
- July 19, 2026 Called To Holiness Brian Hunter walks through 1 Thessalonians 4:7, showing that God's call to holy living is an invitation he equips us for, not a demand we meet on our own.