What does Tribe teach about bema seat?
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 the bema seat begins with a distinction Brian Hunter is careful to hold in place. Salvation is by grace through faith, not by works. That has been the settled conviction of the Protestant church for centuries, and Brian does not soften it. But he argues that clarity about salvation has left many Christians with a foggy picture of what comes next. Every Christian will stand before the judgment seat of Christ, the Greek word bema, and that moment is real and consequential even for those whose eternal standing is already secure.
Brian's picture of the bema seat is not a criminal courtroom. The better image, he says, is an Olympic medal ceremony or the Tour de France podium: the athlete who steps forward already knows he won. The officials are confirming and recognizing what has already been accomplished, not delivering a surprise verdict. The method of that evaluation comes from 1 Corinthians 3, where two kinds of building materials are described, gold, silver, and jewels on one side, wood, hay, and straw on the other, and fire is what tests them. Brian connects that fire to the eyes of Jesus, which burn like flame, and presses the point that when Jesus looks at a person, nothing is hidden. Every thought, motive, intent, and deed is fully visible. What survives that look counts. What burns up does not. As Brian puts it, "Every moment matters when forever is your measure."
What is being evaluated at the bema seat, Brian argues, is not whether a person is saved but whether they fulfilled the specific assignment God prepared for them before they were ever born. Psalm 139:16 anchors that claim, the idea that every day of a life was recorded in God's book before it was lived. The judgment is personal and particular. Brian makes that concrete by saying that Jesus will not call someone forward by their occupation or their general identity, but by name and by the role he gave them. The weight of the bema seat, in this teaching, is not fear of condemnation. It is the sober recognition that the life a believer lives between now and that moment is exactly what will be seen.
Taught from 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 · 2 Corinthians 5:10 · Psalm 139:16 · Romans 14:7-12 · Psalm 25
“Every moment matters when forever is your measure.”
From The Bema Seat： Face to Face
The passage taught · 1 Corinthians 3:10-15
10 According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another builds on it. But let each man be careful how he builds on it.
11 For no one can lay any other foundation than that which has been laid, which is Jesus Christ.
12 But if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or stubble;
13 each man’s work will be revealed. For the Day will declare it, because it is revealed in fire; and the fire itself will test what sort of work each man’s work is.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- August 11, 2025 The Bema Seat： Face to Face Brian Hunter teaches Tribe church what the "bema seat" means for Christians: not a courtroom, but a winner's podium where our works are judged by fire.
- August 10, 2025 The Bema Seat A Wyoming pastor walks through what the Bible says Christians will face at the judgment seat of Christ, and why every moment of obedience counts for eternity.