In the midst of this week’s reading we find ourselves in the letter written by Jude. The author Jude is widely accepted in church history as the brother of Jesus. Jude did not initially follow his brother when Jesus began His public ministry. Like James, Jude put his faith in Jesus sometime after the resurrection.
Perhaps because of its meager length or maybe because it’s message is a little uncomfortable to our politically correct society, Jude is often considered one of the most overlooked and underrated books in the Bible. This seems kind of sad to me, because the message of Jude is one letter that I believe every believer needs to be familiar with.
With the plethora of preachers and teachers we have access to, thanks to the Internet and a Christian publishing market, I honestly believe Jude’s message of warning about false teachers is so very important. We must be aware not only to the fact that there are false teachers in the Church today, but we must also be able to identify them.
Jude gives us several identification points that mark false teachers. First off, these people ignore Jesus’ sovereignty and abuse God’s grace by promoting—by word and/or deed—sexual sin. In fact they mock and laugh at moral purity (vs. 4,8). Second, these false teachers use the Church and their positions of leadership for their own selfish desires and gain (v.12). They will use flattery and sweet sounding compliments to manipulate others (v.16). Third, they are hypercritical and are always complaining. They pursue their own desires instead of God’s will and the well being of others (v. 16). Forth, false teachers cause division in the church and, although the may claim to be spiritual and godly, they show no evidence of fruit (vs. 11,12).
Over and over in Jude we see the end result for such people and it is not pretty. The message we need to take from this is two-fold:
1) Like Jude says in verse 3 we need to “contend for the faith.” We need to fight against false teaching and threats to the good news of Jesus.
2) We need to make sure that we ourselves are not misled by such teachers who may sound and look good on the surface, but will quickly lead us astray.
Hold fast to the gospel brothers and sisters. Continue to look to Jesus!
-Darren Bute
(Youth Pastor)