Jude - A Warning to the Church Part 1. Jude wrote a letter to the church sometime during the latter half of the first century AD. In that letter he appeals to the church that they contend earnestly for the faith. He then goes on to remind the brethren of many Old Testament examples of unfaithfulness. These are examples we should pay attention to. They are not just placed in the Old Testament canon of scripture to condemn the Israelites. But are there as warnings and lessons for the body of Christ to learn from. In Part 1 we will examine the opening verses of Jude and search for the wisdom and warning contained in the opening exhortation. If you like the show don't forget to go on apple podcasts or Spotify or whatever medium you are listening on and rate the show 5 stars and subscribe! Those two things really do help grow the reach of the podcast. Thanks and God Bless!
Jude - A Warning to the Church Part 1. Jude wrote a letter to the church sometime during the latter half of the first century AD. In that letter he appeals to the church that they contend earnestly for the faith. He then goes on to remind the brethren of many Old Testament examples of unfaithfulness. These are examples we should pay attention to. They are not just placed in the Old Testament canon of scripture to condemn the Israelites. But are there as warnings and lessons for the body of Christ to learn from. In Part 1 we will examine the opening verses of Jude and search for the wisdom and warning contained in the opening exhortation. If you like the show don't forget to go on apple podcasts or Spotify or whatever medium you are listening on and rate the show 5 stars and subscribe! Those two things really do help grow the reach of the podcast. Thanks and God Bless!
Jude 1-4
2 Cor 5:17
Gal 5:13-15
Jude Podcast Episode 1
HBP Jude Series
Intro/Opener
The opening verses of Jude
Who was Jude
Why did he write this letter?
How should we apply it?
Hey everyone and welcome to the Harvest Bible Podcast with Micah. This is a show where we look for meaning, purpose, and scriptural clarity, in the Christian faith.
So I want to give just a little update on where I’m going with the podcast - you may remember I had started a series on the book of acts. And we left off in Acts chapter 3. Well my intention is to eventually finish that series - but since I started that series my life situation has changed a little bit. I’ve got a little more responsibility in several areas of my life and I just haven’t had time to dedicate to the Acts series. I’ve actually had several shows ready to record for the next episode, but I just haven’t been happy with the result though. So Acts is still on my radar and I intend to finish it. But it will be as I get the chance to really dedicate some study time to read and pray and meditate about those scriptures.
So that brings us to Jude. Why am I doing a series on Jude? Because my Sunday Bible study group is studying Jude so I’m already dedicating time to prepare for that - so in the hope of being efficient I’m going to try to collect my thoughts and notes and do a podcast series on Jude! The hope is that with a lot of that leg work already done studying and understanding the scriptures - that the podcast episodes will sort of write themselves based on my notes and I’ll be able to be a little more consistent with how often I release a podcast. My current target is to do 1 a month, we’ll see how that goes though. I’ll try to release it towards the end of each month. If you hit the subscribe button it’ll auto download it for you in your apple podcasts app or spotify or whatever you’re listening on. It looks like a little plus sign on the top of your screen if you’re in the apple podcast app.
I also want to try and mix in some stand alone topics like I have done in the past. Similar to the episode from last month. I don’t have a set schedule though, so I’m really just going to wing it month by month.
And on that note - if any listeners have suggestions for a topic or a question they want an answer to - then you can email me at hmbiblepodcast@gmail.com and I’ll try to work that into an episode!
On to the book of Jude.
Target Episode 1 as verses 1-8
Episode 2 as verses 9-16
Who was Jude? Do I even go here?
An explanation
Brother to James
Q: Who was Jude and why did he write this letter? (Biblehub.com encyclopedia also confirms this thought)
A: So i’ll draw from two sources here - from the Baker encyclopedia of the bible and the biblehub.com online encyclopedia of the bible. Both of those basically say that
Jude was the lord’s brother, and James’ brother as it states in the opening verse. But Baker’s encyclopedia doesn’t recognize the Apostleship of Jude. I personally believe it very likely that this was both Jude the Lord’s brother or half brother if you will. And the Apostle Jude or (Thaddeus). It’s a little complicated to prove - but if anyone is interested why I think that, shoot me an email at hmbiblepodcast@gmail.com and I'll send you an explanation of why I think that. Regardless though, just know that there is some debate about the author. But I think it’s probably Jude, who was probably the Apostle, who was also Jesus' half brother.
Now why is Jude writing. Before I get to much into my own thoughts on this - let me just share a few excerpts from the Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible:
1 “But probably these were simply people who had found a way to rationalize immoral behavior and were unwisely mocking the evil powers;” br
Th
This thought alone should already start to make it apparent why the book of Jude has been and will continue to be so relevant for the church. We see as much or more of this now as the church probably ever has.
Baker also acknowledges the possibility that this may have been related to the agnostics - but it’s hard to prove or know that without a doubt. But one thing that I think is important to remember here - The early church had a lot of enemies. There really were enemies who wanted to co-opt or ally themselves with the new faith only for their own gain or some gain other than spiritual growth and atonement with God. I think we probably still see some of that today in the Church. With people who join only because they think they can gain some advantage from being associated with it. So don’t think Jude is only speaking about the past. Whether it was the Greek thinkers of the first century trying to challenge the church’s understanding of who Jesus was and what he actually accomplished with his death, or in today’s world the politics and atmosphere that seems to be bent on persuading the church that we must take a side in today’s politics. Spoiler alert - the Church should most definitely NOT ally itself with any political movements. I think it will be very easy to see, as the message of Jude unfolds before us, that the admonition and warnings presented to us, are still VERY relevant to the church today. Maybe even more so in some regards.
So with that being said, let’s go ahead and jump into the first few verses of the book of Jude. I’m going to read the first 4 verses as the basis for the first section of Jude.
1 Jude, a bond-servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James,To those who are the called, beloved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ: 2 May mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you. 3 Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints. 4 For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.Verses 1-2:
Now this is just the opening bite of Jude. We haven’t really gotten to the core of Jude’s warning yet, but there is enough here to start getting the feeling that the tone of the message is somber and his concern is grave. A few things to potentially grab our attention are already rising to the surface. In verses 1-2, we have this opening greeting. It tells us who the intended audience is for his message. OR put another way, who is this letter relevant for. A lot of times I might be tempted to sort of skip over this kind of opening greeting, that could potentially feel a little generic or might seem like it is there only as a formality. But in this case, I think that because we can already see that Jude is warning us about something, we should take a closer look at who he’s talking to. And the importance will become more and more apparent as we start to unfold the rest of the message of the book of Jude.
So what do we see:
This is a letter meant for only a certain group of people - The Church, the bride of Christ!
Jude goes on to say that the Church (or the called) are the beloved of God, and kept for Jesus. While it might be primarily a formal greeting, the contrast of all the negative examples and the falls from grace that follow seem to indicate there is a subtle contrast here between being in God’s favor versus what you give up when you let yourself or your heart chase after other things…other things that will ultimately lead you away from God.
In summary Jude is saying hey you, the body of Christ, you are incredibly privileged to live in the love and grace of God. And don’t forget that God has specifically called you into this condition. And the rest of the letter of Jude, is Jude warning the church then and especially the church now that there are a lot of voices whispering in your ear… that want to call you out of that condition of being in God’s love. Those voices that would lead you astray through deceit, subterfuge, fear, peer pressure, or a million other things. This letter is very specifically addressed to engaged christians whose hearts are at peace with God. But are being tempted and attacked from every direction, even from inside the church. Even from these first four verses you can already start to feel that Jude is going to be delivering a warning, and in the first two verses he tells us WHO IS IN DANGER. All of the church is!
Verse 3:
In verse 3 Jude tells us why he’s writing the letter. So what is that reason? Verse three starts by telling us that he was yearning to write to his brethren. Wanting to write about our common salvation. Some older translations like KJV will translate that as the common salvation. Just about everything but the KJV seems to translate it as our common salvation. That subtle difference can affect what you think he means in that first part of the sentence in verse 3. But finally he clarifies that, regardless of how his thoughts initially took shape, they coalesced around the need to write specifically in regards to encouraging them to contend for the faith.
Now when I stop to think about that… that’s an interesting way to open a short letter like this. I’m writing to you because I felt compelled to urge you to fight hard for, or contend earnestly for the faith! Wasn’t the church already doing that? It had, after all, grown in leaps and bounds since pentecost. I don’t think he was accusing the church of being lazy. Verse 4 is really what sheds some light on this. Verse 4 he begins to specifically define what he is warning against. So here in verse 3 when he writes about just how necessary he felt it was, probably through the guidance of the holy Spirit, to write and urge them to fight hard for the faith, he was at the same time illuminating the danger that they were in. Saying hey you don’t seem to know it, but you are walking in the shadow of something bad. Sin is crouching in those shadows and it wants to take you down. So you need to be on your guard, be ready to contend or fight, not just for your faith, but be ready to fight to HOLD ON to your faith.
The next thing we need to do to understand this verse is think about - Q: what does it mean to contend earnestly for the faith? Well again here, we’ll get more detail about this as we move ahead through verse 4 and the further we get into Jude. And the more information we get, the better we’ll be able to answer this question. So I’m going to revisit this question again at some point. For now though - the basic meaning is, you need to let the word of God, the grace and mercy you’ve tasted, and your relationship with the Heavenly Father consume your heart to the point where there is no room for anything else to seduce you away from the righteousness you’ve been given in christ. Not the adversary, not the world, and certainly not the flesh. You need to be feeding your spirit so that the new creature within you that Paul mentions in 2 Cor 5:17, is growing strong enough to stand toe to toe with anything that might tempt you into letting your flesh overpower the spirit of truth you’ve been blessed with from God. Feed the spirit and not the flesh.
But there’s another point about this, fighting for the faith that needs to be made here. And I’ll connect it with Gal 5:13-15 says - Im paraphrasing here, As Christians you were called into the freedom of christ. But don’t let your flesh abuse that freedom and cheapen the price paid for it. Use your freedom to show your love and zeal for the brethren. If you cannot follow the principle of loving your neighbor as yourself, then you will end up biting and devouring each other.
What this means very simply is, you must fight for the truth, for righteousness, BUT… NOT against individuals. There are always going to be people who rub you the wrong way, even in the body of Christ. That is not an excuse to pick apart their every action or doctrinal stance and use it as an excuse to tear them down. Or anyone else for that matter. Don’t use your scriptural understanding or doctrinal stances as a club to beat people over the head with. When you disagree with your brethren about something you have to do two things.
Engage them in good faith. Meaning you are not just going to convince them how wrong they are and how right you are. You are there to listen as much as to speak. When you engage them, engage them boldly and with the confidence of Christ. But check your pride at the door. Because you might be wrong.
The second thing you have to do in this situation is, you have to give your brethren the benefit of the doubt. That means you should trust that their intentions are as pure as yours. Listen to their stance and assume they are searching for truth just as much as you are. Once you take that away from them, then you are putting yourself on a pedestal. You’re saying that you have the moral high ground because your intentions are more pure than theirs. Which may or may not be true. Give your brethren the benefit of the doubt and don’t rob them of the assumption of their good intentions. At least not until there is some sort of undeniable or legitimate evidence to the contrary.
Stand firmly for truth and defend righteousness, but don’t go after individuals as if they themselves, and not their sin were the problem.
And in a similar vein, don’t just gloss over the last phrase. IT defines what you are fighting for. A lot of churches have developed creeds and traditions over the last two thousand years. And some of those have a basis in scripture. And others….. Well not so much. Some of the things we do are done just because that’s the way they’ve always been done. And that’s not always a bad thing. Sometimes its just a reflection of the culture or a result of some ancient circumstance. But it’s important to realize we are not beholden by those traditions or even the creeds that are based on human thinking and not the Godly revelation of scripture. This tells us that what you believe in matters. The source of your faith matters. Is your faith built upon the rock or Jesus Christ and the word of God? Or is it based on the culture or the society we live in? Hopefully the answer is not the latter. Everytime the church has let itself be influenced by the culture, the results have been pretty negative for the church. Make sure you are fighting for the faith handed to us in scripture. Not the faith or creeds of men.
Verse 4:
This leads us into verse four. Which starts to give us some real information about what is going on here. What is Jude writing to warn us about. What threat does he see, that is cause for concern and means we need to fortify ourselves in the faith?
In a general sense verse four specifically draws our attention to those who would abuse the grace of God for licentiousness. And we need to stop and think about that for a minute. What does that mean. How could you abuse the grace of God and turn it into licentiousness.
Which means lacking moral restraint. Which sounds a lot like Romans 6:1-2, which asks the question - If God is so gracious as to forgive us for our sins, should we continue in sin so that grace may abound? NO of course not! That would be like treating the death of Christ on the cross as nothing more than a temporary trinket that could be tossed aside and re-used only when needed. Turning the grace of God into licentiousness is a perversion of God’s grace. It’s like taking grace and twisting it into an excuse as to why your sins aren’t that big of a deal. Or twisting God’s word to say that your sins aren’t really sins at all. That kind of Moral relativism is twisting the grace of God into licentiousness.
And licentiousness also usually has a promiscuous connotation with it also. So specifically the abuse of our bodies and engaging in ungodly acts or relationships that God does not sanction would be turning the grace of God into licentiousness. But any teaching or action that would obfuscate or darken our understanding of God’s word and what His righteousness is would be denying our hearts the healing that they really need. There’s only one cure for sin. That’s the humbling mercy obtained for us, and found only in Jesus Christ and his ransom sacrifice. Anything that would deny our hearts that healing, or the need we have for that healing would keep us from ever truly being whole. We should flee from anyone or any teaching that would put us in danger of that.
Crept in Unnoticed
For certain persons (have crept in unnoticed) → G3921 par-ice-doo’-no: To settle in alongside, ie lodge stealthily.
This phrase is really important. I want to try and open up some of the implications of this phrase. That greek word [G3921 - par-ice-doo’no] also carries the thought of something that settles in alongside or creeps in unaware. I think this tells us the same thing in two different ways. It delivers a warning to us from two different directions at least. Think about that idea of something that creeps in by settling down alongside. It’s like the way mud slowly settles down to the bottom of water. Or the way snowflakes gently roll down the sky and settle onto the ground.
If these people, the ones Jude is warning us about settle in alongside us, meaning they are integrated into our christian communities, and they look and talk just like we do, then it’s going to be really hard for us to discern who and what it is that he’s talking about. That’s part of the reason for his letter though, is to give us that extra information, that extra insight, so we can understand what to watch out for. But if these people who do these bad things, have crept in unnoticed, or have been settled in alongside us in our fellowship, they could have only gotten there in two ways. One they snuck in which is the primary picture the scripture seems to paint for us. This means that their intentions were always bad, but they were able to fake their faith. They faked it until they gained our trust. And then once they were settled and established in our communities then their degrading intentions became apparent.
The second possibility is this…. That they started off just like you and me. They loved God, they were overjoyed to know God through Jesus, and humbled by the sacrifice of Christ that allowed for them to come into the body of Christ. But then something went wrong. Something went very very wrong. They got jaded by sin somehow. Maybe by the church or someone in the church. Or by life in general. And over time those bad experiences have that acidic, decaying effect on our hearts and they then become estranged from Jesus and the grace of God. And maybe they don’t even realize it. But this type of person is no less deadly to the well being of the body of Christ than the individual who creeps in with the intent to do harm.
What does this mean though? It means that there is a two fold warning here. An external warning of dangers from outside the church coming in. But then again, there is also an internal warning. For every individual. That warning is, that during that process of your christian life and that settling down that happens as you grow along with and into the church, that you don’t turn into one of these people. That you keep the robe of Christ's righteousness wrapped tightly around your heart. It’s a reminder that each and every one of us has these sinful tendencies to distort and twist God’s word and cheapen the value of His grace. But this is part of our struggle. To not fall into that temptation and to instead contend earnestly for the faith.
The antidote for this is and has always been to pull your heart out of the trap of letting your fleshly feelings decide what is right. Dismiss the feelings that lack the righteousness of Christ. Toss aside anything that is unworthy of the mercy Christ died on the cross for you to have. And embrace the ones that feed your flame of your faith. The ones that build up your spirit in Christ.
Those who were long beforehand marked out
The next thing I want to be sure we focus our attention on is the phrase:
Those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation,
If you just gloss over this or read it without stopping to think carefully about it.. You might think this verse is saying God picked these individuals out and decided they would be subjected to the condemnation mentioned here. But I don't think that’s what this verse is saying. It doesn't say God marked these people out and they were destined to fall into condemnation because of that. I want to mention that the NASB 95 update has in the margin a note that says
NASB marginal note/reading - ….those who were long beforehand written about for this condemnation,...
NIV reading - for certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago….
ASV has similar wording.
RVIC reading… For there are certain men crept in privily, even they who were of old written of beforehand unto this condemnation...
I think those translations are helpful in seeing the focus of that phrase. The verse isn’t saying that God picks individuals out of a crowd and marks some arbitrarily for condemnation and some for salvation. Rather it says that God foresaw that such people would arise. And it was written about or prophesied about long ago. God knows the effect sin has on a human heart. He has seen and continues to see the way sin eats away at our hearts like a strong acid eating away at metal. That sin, that degradation causes some hearts to be so withered and twisted, that when they encounter God’s grace.. Instead of embracing it… they spurn it. They defy it, deny their own need for it. They twist it into an excuse to treat sin as casual and normal. God knew this would happen and was/is prepared to arm the church in a way so that we can withstand that error.
In Summary
As we round out this episode, let's just note the overall description we get here in verse 4 of what Jude is warning the church about. Because this is the main thrust of Jude, everything after this is building on top or expanding upon this warning. If we break verse four down we can see 5 specific traits or things regarding what we’re being warned about.
They settle into the church unnoticed. Or they look just like everyone else.
God knew there would be people who would abuse his grace instead of appreciate it - They will not escape God’s judgment
They are ungodly
They abuse the grace of God into licentiousness - They are immoral
They deny Jesus
And that last thing there is really the summary of all the hardships and temptations that we face in our christian walks. Even beyond what Jude is talking about, that act of denying Jesus our Lord. That is anything that tries to temper the growth of our faith. Anything that comes in between or leads us away from Jesus. If we let them, these things will slowly but effectively lead our hearts into a place where we can be tempted away from the hope we have found in Christ. To instead put our hope and our affection, in something or someone else. If we follow through on that or give in consciously or subconsciously - and we let something else into our hearts and allow it to overcome the spirit of our faith, then we are denying that what Jesus has to offer us, is more satisfying and more fulfilling, and more hopeful than what the world can offer us.
But no matter what specific thing we may end up struggling against in our spiritual walk, Jude has already told us what the antidote is. He tells in vs 4 that we need to watch out for what would cause us to deny our lord and savior Jesus. But in verse 3 he told us what we need to do to avoid that. To contend earnestly for the faith. We don’t need to do this on our own power and strength. I mean sure we have to invest our will and our hearts and minds, but we can’t overcome the world on our own. Jude is telling us that we fortify our faith by depending more on Jesus and his worthiness. Only by investing more and more of ourselves and our victory on His victory will we develop a faith that is able to survive the withering attacks of the things that are trying to lead us astray. Because through the strength we gain in Christ and with the holy Spirit we can build a foundation of faith that is immovable. A faith that is insightful. A faith that is not easily shaken or manipulated. Because it's not our own strength or prowess that we are depending on, but that of Jesus Christ. If we can only move ourselves closer to him then we will find peace and strength. It's imperative that we do so. The more tightly our hearts grip onto Jesus the stronger our spirit will grow.
So be strong and courageous, nurture your faith over and even at the expense of your flesh and God will form, chisel, and temper you into something in the body of Christ that can withstand the fiery darts of sin and sinful thinking that Jude is warning us about.
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Thanks and Lord Bless.