Jude’s message of warning
Brace yourself. This is not easy reading. It’s not the positive message of good news that Jude set out to write. Something must have been brought to his attention to change his mind to write this letter instead.
Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people. For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord. Jude 1:3-4
In many areas of our lives, it’s easy to focus on what’s going well and to turn a blind eye to what is not. We hope that if we ignore it, it will go away on its own. We shy away from confrontation and disagreement and difficult conversations. But the faith that we have been entrusted with is precious and needs us to have the courage to speak out in its defence. Let’s be clear, the threat here is not from the wider world – that ‘enemy’ is easier to identify. The problem here is the people who have infiltrated the group of believers, those who we believe and trust are ‘one of us’.
They share our faith, but they are twisting it in some way to suit their own ends. Their interpretation of this faith is seductive, because it promises success or power or permits ways of living that are not in line with what Jesus himself taught. These people are clever – charismatic, persuasive, appealing. They tell us what we want to hear. They turn our focus away from the dispossessed and poor and voiceless. They lead us away from the truth of all that Jesus taught and lived.
There’s a movement called Red Letter Christians which is striving to bring believers back to a focus on the words and teachings and actions of Jesus. It’s a radical movement back to the roots of our faith (‘radical’ comes from the word for ‘root’, like ‘radish’). This movement could be seen as a modern day Jude. There’s only any need for a movement like this when we as Christians have lost sight of what we stand for, of what Jesus came to earth to demonstrate in action for us.
It’s not OK to think that your faith is simply personal to you and you can get on with doing it in your own way in your small corner. We are a community of believers. We have to stand up for what is right and call out what is wrong. This is what Jude is so passionately urging his readers to do. We have to open our eyes to what is going on around us in the name of Christianity.
Jude goes on to make it clear that these people will not get away with these false teachings and corrupt behaviours forever. There’s a long history in the Old Testament of individuals and communities and cities being punished/brought to account for what they have done. God is a God of justice. But that doesn’t mean we can just sit back and wait for God to act: our silence is complicity. We too will be held account for our failure to stand up for our faith.
In the very same way, on the strength of their dreams these ungodly people pollute their own bodies, reject authority and heap abuse on celestial beings. Jude 1:8
When I read this verse, the word ‘respect’ came to mind. When we lose touch of our connection with God, we lose respect for our selves/bodies, other people and all things spiritual. How we view and treat our bodies says something about how we view God, for didn’t God create each of us in His image and aren’t our bodies ‘a holy temple’ in which the divine resides? And if God created each of us in His image, then we have to respect the divine within each person we meet – including that annoying government official or unreasonable boss. And if we denigrate the things around us that we cannot understand and seek to dismiss and deny the spiritual realm as ‘all a bit woo woo’, are we not disrespecting the God of the universe?
It is damaging to a community of believers to have these kind of people as active members of the body of Christ. ‘Live and let live’ is simply not good enough. The difficulty is that these people are potentially the ones with all the right words, the ones who come across as super spiritual, the ones who know their Bibles – and yet, where is the love of God in the way they focus entirely on themselves and condemn others? They’re ‘shepherds who feed only themselves’ (v12).
Let’s take this warning seriously.
