What does Tribe teach about discernment?
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 discernment starts with a simple but demanding claim: your ability to recognize what God is doing is inseparable from how much time you have spent with Jesus. In the New Wineskins series, Joy Abad put it plainly, saying, "Your capacity to recognize and receive from the Holy Spirit is directly proportional to how much time you spend with Jesus." The disciples and the Pharisees carried the same knowledge of the Torah, but only the disciples could follow Jesus into something new, because they had been with him, watching him, eating with him, walking with him day after day. That accumulated time is what formed their discernment, not a special gift or a stronger intellect.
The same pattern shows up in 2 Chronicles 20, where Jehoshaphat faces an overwhelming enemy coalition. His response was not strategy but proximity to God: he called a fast, gathered everyone, and stood before God recounting what God had already done and holding him to those promises. The new direction God gave was completely unconventional, send the worship team out first and do not fight at all. Joy pointed out that the Hebrew word for listen carries obedience inside it, so hearing and doing are two sides of the same coin. You have not truly discerned if you have not moved.
Pastor Brian carried this further in his teaching on Scripture as the most recognizable way God speaks. He used the image of a climber who can tell ropes apart by feel alone, simply because of time spent with them, to show that discerning God's voice works the same way. Familiarity is not a talent; it is the fruit of practice and time logged. The spiritual disciplines, reading scripture, prayer, and fasting, are not religious checklists but the actual means by which a person builds the kind of inner ear that can pick out God's voice when things are moving fast or sounding strange.
Taught from Matthew 12:1-14 · 2 Chronicles 20:1-24 · 2 Timothy 3:15-16 · 2 Peter 1:3-4 · Matthew 25
“Your capacity to recognize and receive from the Holy Spirit is directly proportional to how much time you spend with Jesus.”
From New Wineskins ｜ Joy Abad
The passage taught · 2 Chronicles 20:1-24
1 After this, the children of Moab, the children of Ammon, and with them some of the Ammonites, came against Jehoshaphat to battle.
2 Then some came who told Jehoshaphat, saying, “A great multitude is coming against you from beyond the sea from Syria. Behold, they are in Hazazon Tamar” (that is, En Gedi).
3 Jehoshaphat was alarmed, and set himself to seek to Yahweh. He proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah.
4 Judah gathered themselves together to seek help from Yahweh. They came out of all the cities of Judah to seek Yahweh.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- February 10, 2025 New Wineskins ｜ Joy Abad Joy Bhatt teaches Tribe Church on how time spent with Jesus shapes our ability to recognize and follow where God is moving, even when it looks unconventional.
- February 9, 2025 Being With Jesus Joy Bhatt teaches on what it means to spend time with Jesus, how that shapes our capacity to recognize God moving, and why discernment matters more than ever.
- June 25, 2023 Marked by His Word Brian Hunter walks through how God speaks through Scripture, why his promises are guaranteed but not automatic, and how to build the habit of hearing his voice.