What does Tribe teach about jesus returns?
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 the return of Jesus starts with an honest acknowledgment that these passages have caused real anxiety for people in the congregation. Rather than avoiding that anxiety, the approach has been to press into it. Pastor Brian has framed studying the end times the way a good parent prepares a child for what is coming, so the child is not blindsided. The goal he kept returning to was replacing fear with clarity, confidence, and even eagerness. He pointed to a family from Tribe where the wife had stayed away from Daniel, Revelation, and the gospel passages about the end times because they kept her up at night, and said that reading commentaries, asking hard questions, and developing a biblically grounded theology of Jesus's return was what finally replaced her anxiety with confidence and joy.
The 2024 teaching worked through Matthew 24, organizing what Jesus describes into phases that begin with what Jesus himself calls birth pains, marked by wars, rumors of wars, false messiahs, famines, and earthquakes. Brian was careful to hold in tension both the literal and the broader meaning of those signs, noting that a false messiah does not have to be a religious figure but could be any philosophy or place that promises to be your everything. The picture he drew of the people of God in that season was not one of hiding and hoarding but of advancing. Brian says, "We will not be hiding under rocks and in caves and in bunkers with our gold and green beans and guns. The gospel will be advancing."
In the 2022 teaching, Brian drew from Habakkuk 3 and a mosaic of prophetic passages to show that God's answer to present distress is often not immediate relief but a picture of what is coming. Communion was framed as sitting between two fixed points, the Passover looking back and the wedding supper of the Lamb looking forward, with the return of Jesus as the horizon toward which everything moves. The thread running through both messages is that the return of Jesus is not meant to produce dread but hope, the kind that overflows onto people around us. Brian says, "He couldn't love you anymore than he already does, and his love is so great that not even the forces of hell could prevent him from coming back for you."
Taught from Matthew 24:1-43 · 1 Thessalonians and 2 Thessalonians · Revelation 19:6-8 · Habakkuk 3:1-6 · Revelation 22:17, 20
“The enemy would love to lull us into complacency with this verse right here by saying, don't worry your pretty little head about it.”
From The Return of Jesus
The passage taught · Colossians 3:2
2 Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- July 29, 2024 The Return of Jesus Brian Hunter walks through Matthew 24, mapping Jesus's own words about birth pains, tribulation, and his return, and why understanding these things builds confidence rather than fear.
- September 5, 2022 Mosaic Tiles of His Return A Wyoming congregation explores Habakkuk's prophetic vision, the return of Christ, and how a living hope can overflow into the lives of people around us.