What does Tribe teach about messianic prophecy?
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 messianic prophecy starts with the conviction that the details surrounding Jesus' birth are not decoration. Brian has walked the congregation through two Old Testament prophecies in particular, the virgin birth from Isaiah 7:14 and the birthplace of Bethlehem from Micah 5:2, and shown how each one was fulfilled in the New Testament accounts with a precision that rules out coincidence. The statistical weight of that fulfillment is something Brian returns to directly: "The odds are so staggeringly impossible. It should cause the human heart to just bow in awe and amazement."
On the virgin birth, Brian draws out something the congregation itself surfaced: of all the signs God could have chosen, this one is impossible by nature and also impossible to verify from the outside. That margin of faith is not a flaw in the sign; it is built into it on purpose. He is also careful to hold the theology steady, explaining that the virgin birth is what makes the hypostatic union possible, Jesus fully human through Mary and fully God, and drawing a parallel between the Holy Spirit coming upon Mary and the Spirit hovering over the waters in Genesis 1. He also clarifies that Immanuel functions as a title rather than a birth-certificate name, the same way Christ is a title and not a surname.
On Bethlehem, Brian brings in Micah 5:2 and uses Wyoming geography to make the point land: Bethlehem was the kind of town nobody would have chosen. The census under Augustus is what moved Joseph and Mary from Nazareth to Bethlehem, and Brian treats that ordinary political machinery as the very instrument God used to fulfill a prophecy written centuries earlier. The cumulative point across both prophecies is that the arrival of Jesus was not accidental or improvised. For anyone carrying doubt or a situation that feels too far gone, Brian connects the fulfillment of these prophecies directly to present trust: "If I can send the savior of the world to defy those statistical odds, don't you think that I've got something special and wonderful for you."
Taught from Isaiah 7:14 · Micah 5:2 · Luke 2:1-7 · Matthew 1:18-19 · Isaiah 9
“The odds are so staggeringly impossible. It should cause the human heart to just bow in awe and amazement.”
From Fulfilled： The Prophecies of Christmas
The passage taught · Genesis 1
1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
2 The earth was formless and empty. Darkness was on the surface of the deep and God’s Spirit was hovering over the surface of the waters.
3 God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
4 God saw the light, and saw that it was good. God divided the light from the darkness.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- December 22, 2025 Fulfilled： The Prophecies of Christmas Brian Hunter walks through two Old Testament prophecies, the virgin birth and Bethlehem, and what the mathematical odds of fulfilling even four messianic prophecies say about hope.
- December 21, 2025 The Virgin and The Village A Wyoming pastor examines two ancient prophecies about the Messiah's birth, a virgin mother and a small forgotten town, and what their fulfillment means for us today.