What does Tribe teach about discerning god's will?
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 discerning God's will starts with a question that runs underneath everything else: how do you recognize which voice is actually his? Brian Winton has walked the congregation through this in a series that moves from the noise competing for our attention, to the Bible as God's primary way of speaking, to something that sits alongside the text itself: the Holy Spirit's work of making scripture land in a particular heart at a particular moment. The point is not just that God has spoken in a book, but that he goes on speaking, illuminating what is written to the person who is listening.
Brian draws on 1 Kings 19, where God is absent from the wind, the earthquake, and the fire, and present only in the still small voice that follows. He would prefer the dramatic register, he admits, because it would remove the need for faith. But the congregation's own instincts shaped the teaching here: the quiet implies that God is not competing for attention the way everything else is. As Brian puts it, "He refuses to compete. What I have to say is so valuable, so life giving, I'm not going to compete with the clamor of other voices." And the whisper is not a sign of distance. "Why could he hear a whisper? Because God is so close to you. He doesn't need to come in from the outside because he's there coming from the inside."
The practical piece Brian describes is what he calls the "knower," the capacity for spirit-to-spirit communication that God places inside every believer at conversion. Before faith, he says, the only signal coming through that channel is the Spirit's call to repent. After, it opens to everything the Spirit wants to say. Discerning God's will, then, is less about straining for external signs and more about learning to recognize a voice that is already speaking from the inside, always in line with what scripture says, never competing, always close.
Taught from 1 Kings 19:11-13 · John 16:13 · 1 John 2:26-29 · Psalm 119:105
“He refuses to compete. What I have to say is so valuable, so life giving, I'm not going to compete with the clamor of other voices.”
From The Revelation of His Word
The passage taught · 1 John 2:26-29
26 These things I have written to you concerning those who would lead you astray.
27 As for you, the anointing which you received from him remains in you, and you don’t need for anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is no lie, and even as it taught you, you will remain in him.
28 Now, little children, remain in him, that when he appears, we may have boldness, and not be ashamed before him at his coming.
29 If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- June 26, 2023 The Revelation of His Word Brian Hunter explores how God speaks through Scripture and the Holy Spirit, drawing on 1 Kings 19 and John 16 to show why that still, small voice matters more than we realize.