What does Tribe teach about dwelling with god?
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 dwelling with God centers on the seven annual feasts God established in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, and particularly on Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles. Brian has walked the church through why these feasts are not the property of one ethnic or religious group but an open invitation from God to anyone who follows him. The feasts are structured around three purposes: to remember how God has come through before, to recalibrate when the weight of life has drifted off center, and to rehearse a future reality. That future reality is dwelling with God permanently, the day when Jesus returns and his people are with him in his glory.
The rehearsal piece is where the teaching goes deepest. Brian pointed to the transfiguration in Mark 9, where Peter's instinct to build shelters was not random. Having practiced Sukkot his whole life, Peter recognized the moment and asked, in his own way, whether this was the literal fulfillment of the feast. That is what rehearsal is for. Sukkot in particular disrupts ordinary comfort on purpose, because comfort, as Brian has put it, lowers our awareness of our need for God dramatically. Sitting outside, sleeping without the usual securities, letting the routine break open, is how the feast creates space for something real to slip in.
The recalibration purpose carries its own weight too. Brian connected it to the tare function on a kitchen scale, zeroing out what does not belong so you can measure only what matters. He described Jesus pressing that same button on people who followed him, and said Brian says, "He is relentlessly and ruthlessly and passionately committed to removing anything from the scale that does not belong." The feast is one of the structured ways God invites his people into that kind of honest reset, not as punishment but as care.
Taught from Leviticus 23:33-42 · Deuteronomy 16:13-15 · Mark 9:1-13 · Revelation 21:3-4 · Psalm 73:25-26
“You can know all day long there's a glass of water that will quench your thirst. But unless you actually drink the water, it does nothing for you.”
From The World's First Selfie
The passage taught · Deuteronomy 16:9-12
9 You shall count for yourselves seven weeks. From the time you begin to put the sickle to the standing grain you shall begin to count seven weeks.
10 You shall keep the feast of weeks to Yahweh your God with a tribute of a freewill offering of your hand, which you shall give, according as Yahweh your God blesses you.
11 You shall rejoice before Yahweh your God: you, your son, your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, the Levite who is within your gates, the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, who are among you, in the place which Yahweh your God shall choose to cause his name to dwell there.
12 You shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt. You shall observe and do these statutes.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- October 2, 2023 The World's First Selfie Brian Hunter walks Tribe through the biblical feast of Sukkot, exploring why God invites his people to remember, recalibrate, and rehearse his faithfulness seven times a year.
- October 17, 2022 Whom Have I in Heaven But You Brian Hunter wraps up four weeks on the Feast of Tabernacles, exploring what it means to dwell with God now and to rehearse for his promised return.