What does Tribe teach about wineskin?
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 wineskins starts with a simple image drawn from Matthew 12. Brian walked the congregation through two scenes, the disciples eating grain on the Sabbath and Jesus healing a man's withered hand in the Pharisees' own synagogue, and used them to name something the church has been sitting with for several months. A wineskin is a person's capacity to receive and adapt to a new movement of God. The Pharisees had the same knowledge of the law as the disciples, but their wineskin had no room left to stretch. Their only move was to demand that Jesus conform to the old container rather than let it be remade.
The teaching pushes past the image itself to ask what actually produces a new wineskin. Both Brian and Joy Bhatt, a Tribe board member who taught in February, kept arriving at the same answer: time spent with Jesus. Brian put it plainly when he said, "I really don't care how much you know about Jesus. But when I see evidence that you've spent time with Jesus resulting in a transformed life, that gets my attention." Joy built on that same thread, arguing that intimacy with Jesus is the only thing that gives a person the ability to recognize his voice when something unfamiliar comes along. You cannot shortcut that kind of knowing, and without it you are left guessing when new things start moving.
The teaching also names what the old wineskin does to people who begin walking in freedom. Brian connected the spirit behind the Pharisees in Matthew 12 to the accuser described in Revelation 12, pointing out that the same pressure that came against the disciples still lands on people today, reminding them of their failures and pulling them back toward guilt and religious constraint. Joy reinforced this from 2 Chronicles 20, where Jehoshaphat faces an overwhelming army and God's instruction is completely counterintuitive: do not fight, send the worship. Both passages together show what a new wineskin looks like in practice. It is not a rejection of God's word. It is a capacity, grown through being with Jesus, to follow him into whatever he is pouring out next.
Taught from Matthew 12:1-14 · 2 Chronicles 20:1-24 · Revelation 12:10-11 · Matthew 25
The passage taught · 2 Chronicles 20:1-24
1 After this, the children of Moab, the children of Ammon, and with them some of the Ammonites, came against Jehoshaphat to battle.
2 Then some came who told Jehoshaphat, saying, “A great multitude is coming against you from beyond the sea from Syria. Behold, they are in Hazazon Tamar” (that is, En Gedi).
3 Jehoshaphat was alarmed, and set himself to seek to Yahweh. He proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah.
4 Judah gathered themselves together to seek help from Yahweh. They came out of all the cities of Judah to seek Yahweh.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- February 9, 2025 Being With Jesus Joy Bhatt teaches on what it means to spend time with Jesus, how that shapes our capacity to recognize God moving, and why discernment matters more than ever.
- January 20, 2025 Breaking the Law Brian Hunter walks through Matthew 12 to show how time with Jesus stretches our capacity for freedom and breaks the grip of religious rules that have no life in them.
- January 19, 2025 Breaking The Law Brian Hunter walks through Matthew 12 to show how time with Jesus breaks the grip of religious legalism and leads to real, transformed freedom.