What does Tribe teach about escape?
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 escape starts with a question Brian raised from the gospel accounts of the crucifixion: why did Jesus refuse the wine mixed with myrrh that soldiers offered him at Golgotha? He had already accepted the cup of suffering in Gethsemane, and when a way out of the pain was placed in front of him, he turned it down. Brian spent real time on what that offered cup actually was. Myrrh mixed with wine produced a narcotic effect, helping a person mentally check out from what was happening to them. He also noted that Roman historical sources describe wine and myrrh as the solution used in the sanitation sponges at city gate latrines. The cup of escape, Brian says, is not what it appears to be. As he put it, "That cup of escape is really poo poo water."
The teaching connects that refusal to the daily choices followers of Jesus face. Brian described the cup of suffering as the cup of discipline, of trusting God without knowing the next five steps, of staying present in difficulty rather than checking out. He drew on James, who writes that the testing of faith produces perseverance, and perseverance produces maturity. A Spurgeon quote Brian brought in made the same point from another angle: adversity that looks like an enemy is in fact a friend, and high character is rarely built by continued prosperity. Brian was clear that none of this means God is harsh. He said plainly, "He is not sadistic. He is not cruel. He is not vindictive." The point is not that God enjoys our pain, but that he refuses to let escape short-circuit what endurance produces.
Brian also made the personal cost of avoidance plain. His own senior quote, he said, was "ignore a problem long enough, and it will go away," and he added, "It's worked out terribly." The pattern escape promises relief and delivers something far worse than what it helped you avoid. The teaching at Tribe on this is that endurance, chosen rather than defaulted into, is the path toward the wholeness that 1 Peter 5:10 describes: being restored, established, and strengthened after suffering.
Taught from Matthew 26:36-39 · Matthew 27:32-35 · James 1:2-4 · 1 Peter 5:10 · Proverbs 14:12
“That cup of escape is really poo poo water.”
From Choosing Endurance Over Escape
The passage taught · 1 Peter 5:10
10 But may the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a little while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- September 30, 2024 Choosing Endurance Over Escape Brian Hunter looks at two cups in the crucifixion story and asks which one we keep reaching for when life gets hard, and why it matters.