What does Tribe teach about apostolic foundations?
Drawn from the message 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 apostolic foundations starts with a conviction that these are not abstract theology but the load-bearing structure beneath everything the church is meant to be. Drawing from Ephesians 2:19-22, the message brought by Steve, a friend of the church who has spent years working through this material, makes the case that the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Jesus as the chief cornerstone. That foundation is not decorative. When it is missing or ignored, Steve argued, what remains can look fine from the outside while being structurally unsound.
Central to this teaching is the idea that the church is meant to be an actual habitation of God in the earth, the same terrifying, power-filled presence that once lived in the Holy of Holies, now dwelling in people collectively. Steve used Jude's call to contend earnestly for the faith once and for all delivered to the saints alongside Ephesians four's list of gifts to press the point that the gift of apostle still belongs in the body, even if it makes people the most uncomfortable. The discomfort, he suggested, is itself a sign of how far the church has drifted from its own foundation.
The teaching carries a personal urgency that runs beneath the doctrine. Steve's own journey, from charismatic upbringing through a season of communist ideology in college to a dramatic encounter with God on a porch, was offered not as biography but as evidence that these foundations become real only when a person has a genuine revelation of Jesus for themselves. He put it plainly: "God will take you as serious as you take him. Half measures get half measures. Full measures get full measures."
Taught from Ephesians 2:19-22 · Jude 1:3 · Ephesians 4:11-15 · Ephesians 3:1-21 · Hebrews 6:1-2
“God will take you as serious as you take him. Half measures get half measures. Full measures get full measures.”
From Contending for Apostolic Foundations
The passage taught · 2 Corinthians 10:4-5
4 for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the throwing down of strongholds,
5 throwing down imaginations and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ;
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- September 11, 2023 Contending for Apostolic Foundations A guest speaker shares his journey from communist college student to plumber and back to faith, exploring what Scripture calls the apostolic foundations of the church.