Parallel YUD Intro

The Letter of Jude

Purpose

To urge readers to defend their faith in the face of false teaching

Author

Jude, brother of Jesus

Date

Unknown, possibly around the same time as 2 Peter (early 60s AD)

Setting

Written to a group of churches that had been infiltrated by false teachers who encouraged an immoral lifestyle

The very brief letter of Jude has a single focus: to warn believers against succumbing to false teaching. Jude helps believers in Christ stay true to the faith by painting a grim portrait of deviant teachers. Arrogant, immoral, and greedy, these teachers are destined for the terrible judgment God has in store for all who deny and defy him. Who would want to follow such people to their condemnation? In a world with so many distorted ideas about Christianity, we need to be reminded of the dangers of false teaching.

Setting

Jude wrote this letter to combat false teachers in the early church. Jude focuses less on what these people were teaching than on the way they were living; at the heart of Jude’s critique is the charge that they were libertines—they assumed that God’s grace revealed in Christ gave them the freedom to do whatever they pleased (1:4). They had no respect for authority (see 1:8-9), and they engaged in many sinful behaviors (1:16, 19). These profligates, who claimed to be followers of Christ (see 1:4), were effectively denying the Lord and were therefore destined for the condemnation of all who rebel against him.

Summary

After the letter opening (1:1-2), Jude explains the situation prompting his letter (1:3-4): The imminent danger posed by the false teachers required that he write a very different kind of letter from the one he had planned to write.

In 1:5-16, Jude elaborates on the character of these false teachers. This section unfolds in an A-B-A’ sequence. Jude first uses three scriptural examples to illustrate the condemnation that the false teachers face (A, 1:5-10). He then cites three more scriptural examples to castigate them for their ungodly attitudes and behavior (B, 1:11-13). At the end of this section, he returns to their condemnation, citing Jewish tradition to hammer home his indictment (A’, 1:14-16).

Jude then appeals directly to his readers (1:17-23), urging them to hold fast to God’s truth and to reach out to believers who might be tempted to follow the false teachers. The letter ends with a notable doxology (1:24-25).

Author

Jude identifies himself as “a brother of James” (1:1). This James is almost certainly the “Lord’s brother” (Gal 1:19; see Matt 13:55 // Mark 6:3), who became the recognized leader of the Jerusalem church (Acts 15:13-21; 21:18) and wrote the letter of James. Jude was therefore also a brother of Jesus (Jude is called “Judas” in Matt 13:55 // Mark 6:3). Jude and the other brothers of Jesus did not follow Jesus during his earthly ministry (John 7:5), but evidently became believers after the Resurrection (see Acts 1:14; 1 Cor 15:7) and traveled to spread the message about the resurrected Lord (1 Cor 9:5).

Date and Destination

We know so little about Jude that we cannot pin down a date or destination for the letter. It was probably written after AD 45, to allow time for the kind of false teaching described here to develop. It was probably written before AD 90, when even a young brother of Jesus would have been old. The close relationship between 2 Peter and Jude suggests that the two might have been written at about the same time (see 2 Peter Book Introduction, “Relationship to Jude”).

Meaning and Message

False Teachers.  False teachers of many varieties have disturbed God’s people over the years. Jude’s letter is a powerful reminder of their potential to harm the community and offers a stark depiction of their terrible fate. Jude’s description of the false teachers makes dynamic use of the Old Testament and other Jewish traditions. Jude compares the false teachers to the rebellious Israelites in the wilderness (1:5), to the angels who rebelled against God (1:6), and to the sinners of Sodom and Gomorrah (1:7). The false teachers are like Cain (see Gen 4), Balaam (see Num 22–24), and Korah (see Num 16). Like all of these examples, false teachers are rebels against the Lord and will experience his judgment.

Defending the Faith.  In 1:3, Jude implies that there is a core message in the early church which serves as the basis for Christian belief. Paul assumes the same thing when he urges Timothy to “guard what God has entrusted to you” (1 Tim 6:20; see 2 Tim 1:14).

To be a Christian means to have faith in God and love for others; it also means to confess gladly the truth that God has revealed in Jesus Christ. We cannot truly express faith in God unless we acknowledge the truth that he has revealed. For this reason, early Christians, even in the New Testament period, formulated creedal statements to summarize the essentials of Christian truth (e.g., 1 Tim 3:16). These creeds were often crafted to counteract a false teaching.

If we are to heed Jude’s call to “defend the faith,” we need to know just what that faith is. Too many Christians spend too much energy in debating nonessential details and too little in learning the essentials well. Only by learning the essentials will the faithful be able to explain their faith to others and to guard Christian truth from false teaching.