What does Tribe teach about spiritual blindness?
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 spiritual blindness starts with a simple, unflinching claim: it is the default condition of every person who has not surrendered their life to Jesus, regardless of how educated, religious, or self-aware they are. Brian Hunter has returned to this theme across multiple messages, and the thread running through all of them is that spiritual blindness is not primarily a moral failure but a condition, one the person inside it cannot diagnose on their own. Brian says, "It doesn't matter how smart you are, how much you read this book as an intellectual, how learned you are, how open minded you are, you're blind." The Pharisees in John 9 are the clearest example: they had the scriptures, they had the training, they had every advantage, and they still could not see what was standing in front of them.
The teaching does not stop at diagnosis. Both in the John 9 series and in the Isaiah 9 messages, Brian has been careful to say that Jesus names the blindness not to condemn but to cure. The man born blind in John 9 is thrown out by the people who should have celebrated him, dismissed by his own neighbors, and left alone. Jesus hears about it and goes to find him. That sequence matters, because it means the spiritually blind person does not have to locate Jesus on their own. Brian says, "I was totally, spiritually blind and didn't even know it. But now, I see." The remedy is available, but it requires the kind of encounter Paul had on the road to Damascus, not just knowing about Jesus intellectually, but actually meeting him.
For anyone sitting with this right now, the Tribe teaching is honest about how disorienting that moment of seeing can be. The man in John 9 does not get a celebration. He gets interrogation, rejection, and upheaval. But he also gets found by Jesus a second time. Brian has also said plainly that for anyone who has not yet crossed that line, Brian says, "For anyone that has not surrendered their life to Jesus, the most compassionate thing I can tell you is that you are blind, and you don't even know it." That is not a condemnation. It is, as Brian frames it, the most loving thing that can be said, because blindness that gets named is blindness that can be healed.
Taught from John 9:1-41 · 2 Corinthians 4:3-4 · Isaiah 35:5-7 · Isaiah 9:1-7 · John 7:52
“For anyone that has not surrendered their life to Jesus, the most compassionate thing I can tell you is that you are blind, and you don't even know it.”
From A Government That Will Never End
The passage taught · Isaiah 9:1-7
1 But there shall be no more gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time, he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali; but in the latter time he has made it glorious, by the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.
2 The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who lived in the land of the shadow of death, on them the light has shined.
3 You have multiplied the nation. You have increased their joy. They rejoice before you according to the joy in harvest, as men rejoice when they divide the plunder.
4 For the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, you have broken as in the day of Midian.
World English Bible
The messages that teach on it
- December 23, 2024 A Government That Will Never End Brian Hunter walks through Isaiah 9 verse by verse, asking whether each prophecy is past, present, or still coming, and why it matters this Christmas.
- December 22, 2024 Fuel for the Fire Brian Hunter walks through Isaiah 9:1-7 verse by verse, asking whether each line points to something already fulfilled, unfolding now, or still coming when Jesus returns.
- August 5, 2024 Open Blind Eyes Brian Hunter walks through John 9, the healing of a man born blind, exploring physical and spiritual blindness, what Jesus reveals about suffering, and how he finds the outcast.
- August 4, 2024 Open Blind Eyes A man born blind receives his sight, and a Jackson Hole congregation talks through what that miracle means for anyone still in the dark spiritually.
Mentioned along the way
- April 17, 2023 TTCA WEEK 7 Wrap Up Brian Hunter walks through Jesus' letters to seven churches in Revelation, asking what it looks like when a congregation finally turns and faces the right direction.