What does Tribe teach about types and shadows?
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 types and shadows starts with the conviction that the Bible itself originated this literary technique long before Hollywood borrowed it. Brian has used the story of Joseph's reunion with his brothers in Genesis 45 to show how earlier figures and events in Scripture are deliberately shaped to point forward to Jesus. Joseph, in this teaching, is not just a historical character but what Brian calls a proto-Jesus, a figure whose life anticipates the Messiah in specific and striking detail.
Brian walked the congregation through those details together, inviting the room to call out the connections they saw rather than simply handing them a list. The parallels the congregation identified included Joseph's obedience mirroring Jesus' obedience, Joseph's forgiveness of the brothers who sold him pointing to Jesus forgiving his torturers from the cross, Joseph providing grain for people who had wronged him the way Jesus provides sustenance for the soul, and Joseph revealing himself to eleven brothers just as Jesus appeared to eleven disciples after the resurrection. Brian added his own layer by noting that the Hebrew root of the word translated 'preserve' in Genesis 45:5 connects to the root of Mashiach, and that Joseph's Egyptian name carries the meaning of savior. The point was not to diminish Joseph but to show that his story was always carrying more weight than its surface.
What Brian drew out of all this was a particular claim about grace. None of what Joseph accomplished for his brothers was their doing, and none of what Jesus accomplishes for those who wronged him is theirs either. Brian says, "It was not you who sent me here but god," quoting Joseph's own words back to the room as the center of the whole picture. Salvation, in this teaching, belongs entirely to the one sent, not to the ones being saved. As Brian put it, there is nothing in this life that Jesus is not the forerunner of, and the story of Joseph exists in Scripture to make exactly that claim visible.
Taught from Genesis 45:1-8 · Ephesians 2:8-9 · Zechariah 12:10 · Romans 6:23 · Zephaniah 3:17
“It was not you who sent me here but god.”
From Jesus, the Better Joseph
The passage taught · 1 John 1:9
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us the sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- September 16, 2024 Jesus, the Better Joseph Brian Hunter walks through Genesis 45, exploring how Joseph's story foreshadows Jesus, the better Joseph, who provides not just grain but salvation for all who come to him.
- September 15, 2024 Jesus, the Better Joseph Brian Hunter walks through Genesis 45, where Joseph reveals himself to his brothers, showing how Joseph's story points forward to Jesus as the true and better savior.