The Letter of Jude

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
Matthew 5:16

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Jude's purpose is to make his readers aware of the false teachers who have entered the church preaching a message of moral libertinism, and to charge them to earnestly defend and contend for the true faith. He does this by strong use of rhetoric, and by making a host of allusions to incidents and texts from the Old Testament and other Jewish tradition to argue his points. In contrast to the view of his opponents, Jude argues that the moral authority of Christ and the Scriptures is supreme.

While the opponents worked from within the Christian community and may never have expressed themselves this way, Jude argues that they deny Christ's lordship and authority and have perverted God's grace. This is strong language. These people have 'infiltrated' the community and now threated to wreck it from within. The warning is pretty clear.

If Jude the brother of Jesus is the author, then a probable date of writing might be in the 50s or 60s of the First Century (v3 implies Jude's still active involvement in ministry). But a different author or a date later in that century could also be possible. From the amount of Jewish allusions, it appears that his readers were steeped in Jewish thinking and would be persuaded by arguments from Old Testament precedent. The opponents entered the community from outside (v4), and preached a message of moral freedom and sexual license which Jude condemns in the strongest terms imaginable.

Jude is the last of the 'catholic' or 'general' epistles (James, 1 2 Peter, 1 2 3 John and Jude). There are particularly close similarities between Jude v4-13, 16-18 and 2 Peter 2:1-18; 3:1-3. It is usually assumed 2 Peter uses Jude as a source, but this is not an inevitable conclusion. The main body of Jude's letter argues its point from Old Testament events and allusions, so Jude assumes that the OT is highly relevant for believers today in terms of the lessons it contains.

After his opening greetings, Jude sets out the central appeal of his letter in v3-4: that believers should defend their faith in the face of false teachers. The main part of the letter (v5-19) is made up of four examples from Jewish scripture and tradition which show that God does indeed step in to judge those behave inappropriately: v5-10, 11-13, 14-16, 17-19). The letter then reaffirms its appeal and concludes in v20-25.

Jude is the only New Testament book to quote non-canonical Jewish text (i.e. a text not found in the Bible). Jude v14-15 appears to quote 1 Enoch 1:9. It seems from other New Testament allusions that such works were known and referred to, but this does not at all imply that 1 Enoch is inspired or that other parts of it are worth quoting from! Modern writers may well refer to and quote other books to make a point without considering them inspired.

The warnings Jude gives about the judgments of God and the importance of proper doctrine and behaviour are very important. How do we know? Because, by the examples he cites, he shows in each case that what is at stake is a life or death matter. No one can read Jude without considering whether there own position is sound, and whether they have evaluated carefully enough their own understanding and practise of God's truth.