What does Tribe teach about nicodemus?
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 Nicodemus starts with the recognition that he was a man standing in front of something genuinely new and unable to fit it into any category he already had. Brian used John 3 as the main teaching passage in a series on new wine and new wineskins, reading through it with the congregation and asking two questions: what is the new wine in this passage, and what is the new wineskin? The room worked through it together. Nicodemus had witnessed miraculous signs he could not explain from within his existing framework, and Jesus kept offering him the same truth from several different angles without softening it to fit Nicodemus's categories. Jesus never offered to pour a little new wine into the old wineskin. He pointed Nicodemus toward needing something new entirely.
Out of that discussion came a working definition Brian put before the congregation: the wineskin represents a person's capacity to receive and adapt to a new work of the Holy Spirit in their life. People in the room connected Nicodemus's struggle to the condition of a person's spirit before they receive Jesus, noting that a spirit that is not yet alive simply cannot hold what the Holy Spirit is offering. Brian also pointed out that Nicodemus was not mocked for struggling. Jesus was patient, using the image of wind to describe what Nicodemus could not yet grasp, but the challenge was real.
The story of Nicodemus also shaped how Brian talked about what a healthy wineskin looks like going forward. A wineskin is not meant to hoard what it receives. It is meant to pour out. Brian ran what he called a stretch test, naming places where a brittle wineskin will crack, including whether there is room for the full picture of Jesus, the warrior as well as the lamb, and whether the Holy Spirit is allowed to move in power today. The concern underneath all of it was whether a person, or a community, has the real capacity to receive what God is doing, or whether old frameworks will cause it to be lost.
Taught from John 3:1-21 · Matthew 9:14-17 · Luke 5:33-39 · 2 Corinthians 5:17 · John 19:38-42
“If this is a place where a culture is created that we wear masks and that we can't be real and vulnerable, heaven forbid that this place be a museum of exhibits for saints.”
From New Wineskin, New Capacity
The passage taught · 2 Corinthians 5:17
17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- November 18, 2024 New Wineskin, New Capacity Brian Hunter walks through John 3 and the story of Nicodemus to ask one pointed question: what is the condition of your wineskin, and is there room for what God is pouring out?
- November 17, 2024 New Wine Deeper Explained A Tribe Church sermon on Jesus's teaching about new wine and wineskins, exploring what it means to stay open to the Holy Spirit's work in your life.