What does Tribe teach about dying to self?
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 dying to self starts with a question Brian Hunter put to the room: why did the Pharisees, after watching Jesus heal a man's withered hand, walk away and begin plotting to kill him? The answers the congregation worked through together, wounded ego, a deep investment in a system that Jesus threatened, the flesh's hostility toward God, all pointed to the same root. Brian anchored the whole conversation in Romans 8:7, that the mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God and cannot submit to his law, and drew out what that means at a personal level. When your way of approaching God, or your sense of what is right, gets challenged, the flesh does not negotiate. It plots. As Brian put it, "You plot how to murder Jesus by choosing your own way."
The series moves through Galatians and Leviticus together, and Galatians 2:20 is the destination Brian keeps returning to: Paul's confession that his old self has been crucified with Christ and it is no longer he who lives but Christ who lives in him. That verse is not treated as a slogan. The detailed burnt offering regulations in Leviticus 1, the unblemished animal, the precise sequence of cutting and burning, the weight of blood and smoke, are read as the costly picture of what it takes for a holy God to dwell with his people at all. Brian's framing is direct: "For a life giving relationship with God, something has to die."
The teaching also gets personal and quiet. Brian describes the Holy Spirit's work in conviction not as a broad indictment but as something precise and specific. He says, "Conviction from the Holy Spirit whispers to your heart about one thing he wants to talk about. One thing." The Thunderdome image from the series title presses the same point in a different register: when your will and God's will enter the arena together, only one walks out. The whole arc of the teaching is meant to help people face that honestly rather than avoid it.
Taught from Galatians 2:20 · Romans 8:7 · Leviticus 1:1-17 · Exodus 40:34-38 · Matthew 12:12-14
“For a life giving relationship with God, something has to die.”
From Two Men Enter, One Man Leaves
The passage taught · Exodus 33:7-11
7 Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far away from the camp, and he called it “The Tent of Meeting.” Everyone who sought Yahweh went out to the Tent of Meeting, which was outside the camp.
8 When Moses went out to the Tent, all the people rose up, and stood, everyone at their tent door, and watched Moses, until he had gone into the Tent.
9 When Moses entered into the Tent, the pillar of cloud descended, stood at the door of the Tent, and spoke with Moses.
10 All the people saw the pillar of cloud stand at the door of the Tent, and all the people rose up and worshiped, everyone at their tent door.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- February 17, 2025 Two Men Enter, One Man Leaves Brian Hunter opens a new series in Leviticus and Galatians, exploring what it really costs to live in relationship with God and why something always has to die.
- February 16, 2025 The Series: Two Men Enter, One Man Leaves A Jackson Hole pastor opens a series on Leviticus and Galatians, exploring why something must die for a life-giving relationship with God to begin.