Jude

The Apostle Jude by Anthony Van Dyck

The author of this letter calls himself, “Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James”. The mention of James has led to some speculation. Is this a reference to James the half-brother of Jesus and leader in the Early Church? If so, then Jude is not only the brother of James but also the half-brother of Jesus. Jude or Judas or Judah is mentioned as the name of one of Jesus’ brothers. (See Mark 6:3 and Matthew 13:55.) Therefore, some scholars have thought that this letter was written by that Jude. However, if this is the case, why does Jude not simply come out and say that he is the half-brother of Jesus? Perhaps he does not do so because he does not think himself worthy of that familial connection. He is, after all, just a servant of Jesus the Messiah.

The strike against this letter being written by Jude is that it appears to be one of the later letters of the New Testament, written, most likely, after the generation in which Jude, the brother of Jesus, lived. Our author speaks of contending “for the faith once delivered unto the saints.” This use of the word “faith” to refer to the received doctrine of the church is a rather more developed use of the term than what we find in the Gospels or the genuine letters of Paul. Furthermore, the author of this letter refers to the age of the apostles as a time long past. (See verse 17.) Therefore, it seems the safe conclusion would be that we do not know who the writer of this letter was, but that it was written, at best, late in the first century, to Christians in general. Thus, this letter is included among the General or Catholic (universal) epistles, since it is not a letter addressed to a specific church in a specific city or region.

The author of this letter warns against false teachers. The characteristic of these particular teachers is that they use the grace of God as an excuse for immoral living. In effect these teachers say, “Since God will forgive you, then you may go ahead and live however you wish.” The fact of the matter is that this response is impossible for the true Christian who has really experienced the grace of God. Such a person will want to please God though he or she will certainly fail in doing so at times. However, if one does try to look at grace in the manner of the false teachers then eventually it will lead to denying the Lordship of Jesus Christ altogether.

Jude offers to his readers a number of illustrations from Scripture as warnings not to follow the path of the false teachers. He reminds them of how after the Israelites were rescued out of Egypt, some were destroyed in the desert because of their unbelief. Jude also refers to some apocryphal scriptures that tell of the judgment of angels. And he recalls the stories of Sodom and Gommorah, Cain, Balaam, and the apocryphal story of Enoch.

What is the proper response to false teaching and the immorality that goes along with it? According to Jude, the proper response is not to become judgmental but like the archangel Michael simply say, “The Lord rebuke you.” In other words, we need to leave judgment to the Lord.

Jude says we should not be surprised by the ungodliness around us, nor by those in the church who appear to turn away from the Lord. He says that the apostles long ago warned of such things in the end times. (Of course the end times are composed of the entire period between Christ’s first and second comings. Jude never could have imagined how long these end times would last, some two thousand years so far.)

How is the Christian to live in such times? Jude gives some very clear instruction. We need to build ourselves up in our most holy faith. In other words, we need to feed ourselves on true doctrine. Secondly, we need to pray in the Spirit. Prayer is a mystery sometimes but it is vital that we keep communication lines with God open.

Thirdly, we need to keep ourselves in the love of God. We need to remember daily just how much God loves us, so much so that he gave his Son for us on the cross.

Fourthly, we need to be on the lookout for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. In other words, we need to be watching and waiting patiently for Jesus’ return.

How should we respond to the ungodliness around us? As severe as Jude is in his condemnation of the false teachers and their way of living, he also says that we need to have compassion. It reminds me of the contrast between tow trucks in the USA and in England. In the USA tow trucks are often called wreckers. In the UK, they have one word on them: “Recovery”. When the world sees Christians coming, do they see the wreckers or those offering recovery?

Jude ends his brief letter with a powerful benediction. If the book of Revelation had never been written, this benediction would have served as an excellent conclusion to the entire Bible….

Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,

To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.

Comments

C. S. Lewis on Homosexuality

Arthur Greeves In light of recent developments in the United States on the issue of gay marriage, I thought it would be interesting to revisit what C. S. Lewis thought about homosexuality. Lewis, who died in 1963, never wrote about same-sex marriage, but he did write, occasionally, about the topic of homosexuality in general. In the following I am quoting from my book, Mere Theology: A Guide to the Thought of C. S. Lewis . For detailed references and footnotes, you may obtain a copy from Amazon, your local library, or by clicking on the book cover at the right.... In Surprised by Joy , Lewis claimed that homosexuality was a vice to which he was never tempted and that he found opaque to the imagination. For this reason he refused to say anything too strongly against the pederasty that he encountered at Malvern College, where he attended school from the age of fifteen to sixteen. Lewis did not rate pederasty as the greatest evil of the school because he felt the cruelty displa...

Fact, Faith, Feeling

"Now Faith, in the sense in which I am here using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods. For moods will change, whatever view your reason takes. I know that by experience. Now that I am a Christian I do have moods in which the whole thing looks very improbable: but when I was an atheist I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable. This rebellion of your moods against your real self is going to come anyway. That is why Faith is such a necessary virtue: unless you teach your moods 'where to get off', you can never be either a sound Christian or even a sound atheist, but just a creature dithering to and fro, with its beliefs really dependent on the weather and the state of its digestion. Consequently one must train the habit of Faith." Mere Christianity Many years ago, when I was a young Christian, I remember seeing the graphic illustration above of what C. S. Lewis has, here, so...

C. S. Lewis Tour--London

The final two days of our C. S. Lewis Tour of Ireland & England were spent in London. Upon our arrival we enjoyed a panoramic tour of the city that included Westminster Abbey. A number of our tour participants chose to tour the inside of the Abbey where they were able to view the new C. S. Lewis plaque in Poets' Corner. Though London was not one of Lewis' favorite places to visit, there are a number of locations associated with him. One which I have noted in my new book, In the Footsteps of C. S. Lewis , is Endsleigh Palace Hospital (25 Gordon Street, London) where Lewis recovered from his wounds received during the First World War.... Not too far away from this location is King's College, part of the University of London, located on the Strand, just off the River Thames. This is the location where Lewis gave the annual commemoration oration entitled The Inner Ring on 14 December 1944.... C. S. Lewis occasionally attended theatrical events in London....

The Shepherds' Perspective on Christmas

On December 21, 2015, the following headline appeared in the International Business Times: “Bethlehem Christmas 2015 Cancelled”. To be fully accurate, religious celebrations of Jesus’ birth went forward last year in Bethlehem, but many of the secular celebrations of Christmas that usually surround it were toned down due to instability in the area. Looking back a decade, there was even one year when Christian Arabs canceled community celebrations of Christmas in support of the Palestinian uprising. However, the Jewish government would have no part of that, so the Israeli military sponsored its own holiday celebrations in the area. It is also interesting to note who celebrated the first Christmas and who didn’t. The first Christmas was not celebrated by the emperor Caesar Augustus, nor Quirinius, the governor of Syria, nor was it celebrated by the lowly innkeeper. But Christmas was celebrated by a few lonely shepherds along with Joseph and Mary and the angels of heaven. How ...

C. S. Lewis on Church Attendance

A friend's blog written yesterday ( http://wesroberts.typepad.com/ ) got me thinking about C. S. Lewis's experience of the church. I wrote this in a comment on Wes Robert's blog: It is interesting to note that C. S. Lewis attended the same small church for over thirty years. The experience was nothing spectacular on a weekly basis. For most of those years Lewis didn't care much for the sermons; he even sat behind a pillar so that the priest would not see the expression on his face. He attended the service without music because he so disliked hymns. And he left right after holy communion was served probably because he didn't like to engage in small talk with other parishioners after the service. But that life-long obedience in the same direction shaped Lewis in a way that nothing else could. Lewis was once asked, "Is attendance at a place of worship or membership with a Christian community necessary to a Christian way of life?" His answer w...

A Prayer at Ground Zero

Does the Bible mention treating animals with kindness?

When I solicited questions to be addressed in this series, a member of the congregation wrote this to me: “Animals are mentioned in the Bible as beasts of burden and sacrificial animals. Is there any mention of treating animals with kindness?” The short answer to that question is: yes. However, it is important to note that what the Bible says about caring for animals comes in the midst of a great narrative. It is a narrative of Creation, Fall, and Redemption. Let’s look at these three great acts in the narrative play of world history one by one. First, let’s look at creation. Creation At the very beginning of the Bible, in the book of Genesis, chapter 1, verses 26 through 28, we read this: Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing th...

Christmas Day Thought from Henri Nouwen

" I keep thinking about the Christmas scene that Anthony arranged under the altar. This probably is the most meaningful "crib" I have ever seen. Three small woodcarved figures made in India: a poor woman, a poor man, and a small child between them. The carving is simple, nearly primitive. No eyes, no ears, no mouths, just the contours of the faces. The figures are smaller than a human hand - nearly too small to attract attention at all. "But then - a beam of light shines on the three figures and projects large shadows on the wall of the sanctuary. That says it all. The light thrown on the smallness of Mary, Joseph, and the Child projects them as large, hopeful shadows against the walls of our life and our world. "While looking at the intimate scene we already see the first outlines of the majesty and glory they represent. While witnessing the most human of human events, I see the majesty of God appearing on the horizon of my existence. While...

Glenmerle

Glenmerle in the 1950s In 2013 I published a biography on one of my favorite authors, Sheldon Vanauken. If you are interested, you can learn more and/or purchase a signed copy here: Signed Copy or an unsigned copy here: Amazon . One of the things that got me writing the book was my search for the location of Glenmerle, Vanauken's childhood home, so lovingly described in his book, A Severe Mercy . A visit to Van's alma mater, Staunton Military Academy, alerted me to the fact that Van grew up in Carmel, Indiana. Then, with the help of a local historian, we identified the location of Glenmerle. Because Van had suggested, in my first conversation with him, that Glenmerle was destroyed, I naturally assumed that the house no longer existed. However, another one of Van's fans recently contacted me to let me know that she believed she had found Glenmerle still in existence. I was able to look up the house on a real estate web site and compare current interior p...

Sheldon Vanauken Remembered

A good crowd gathered at the White Hart Cafe in Lynchburg, Virginia on Saturday, February 7 for a powerpoint presentation I gave on the life and work of Sheldon Vanauken. Van, as he was known to family and friends, was best known as the author of A Severe Mercy , the autobiography of his love relationship with his wife Jean "Davy" Palmer Davis. While living in Oxford, England in the early 1950's, Van and Davy came to faith in Christ through the influence of C. S. Lewis. Van was a professor of history and English literature at Lynchburg College from 1948 until his retirement around 1980. A Severe Mercy tells the story of Davy's death from a mysterious liver ailment in 1955 and Van's subsequent dealing with grief. Van himself died from cancer in 1996. It was my privilege to know Van for a brief period of time during the last year of his life. However, present at the White Hart on February 7 were some who knew Van far better than I did--Floyd Newman, one of Van...

Will Vaus

Search This Blog