Perhaps he was also accompanied by an Apostle or had some other claim to apostolic review Jude had a ministry as a traveling evangelist, accompanied by his wife, according to Paul in 1 Cor 9:5 So Apostles were the source for the content in all NT books save Jude’sĪnd yet the early church fathers universally accepted the authority of this letter, considering it inspired Now neither Luke nor Mark were apostles either, but Luke’ s material was sourced by Paul, while Mark’s material was sourced by PeterĪnd all other letters were written directly by Apostles Jude specifically excludes himself from the company of such men, as we’ll see in v.17 Secondly, Jude is the only book of NT scripture sourced by someone who was not considered an apostle Those triads offer a convenient way to organize our study of the letter, like an outline with 14 points Jude writes using triads (i.e., thoughts expressed in threes) throughout his letter, for a total of 14 triads in just 25 verses Jude displays a remarkable love for triplets.and I’m not speaking of his dating life ![]() So to understand the letter properly, we must spend some time in places revisiting that history ourselvesīut as I said, Jude’s letter is unique in the NT, and in fact it is arguably the most remarkable of the five Jewish Epistlesįirst, the structure of the letter is poetic So the NT Jewish letters commonly draw from that history to make theological application, and Jude does this extensively The Jewish people knew the story of their nation intimately, since it was recorded in scriptureīut depending on which school of Jewish teaching they experienced, their understanding of the meaning of that history could vary widely Jude’s letter shares another feature common to all the Jewish epistles: he borrows liberally from Jewish history and writings So Jude writes to encourage the churches to recognize and respond to the fulfillment of Peter’s warning In Jude’s day, those false teachers had in fact arrived in the Diaspora, just as Peter predicted 2:2 Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned 2:1 But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves.ĢPet. Peter began his second chapter of that letter in this way:ĢPet. ![]() In his second letter, Peter warned the churches that wicked men, false teachers, were going to come to them seeking to corrupt the faith The letters of Hebrews, James, 1 & 2 Peter and Jude comprise the Jewish Epistles Our NT includes five letters written to these early Christians The Diaspora refers to ten Greek cities outside Palestine where Jews settled after Rome conquered the nationĬollectively, these cities held the bulk of Jewish believers in the early church Still, something we give the least attention can often be the thing that most deserves examination.like that check engine light on your dashĪll this is ironic, because Jude’s purpose in writing was to warn the church against overlooking false teachers who had arrived in the churchĪ few years, perhaps a decade, earlier, Peter had written to Jewish believers in the churches of the Diaspora So generations of Christians have neglected the letter, largely out of ignorance Yet the author makes little attempt to explain his fleeting references to strange and marvelous things Jude’s letter invites wonder and confusion due mainly to its frequent references to extra-Biblical material The letter is only 25 verses, so it’s a very quick read, yet it’s one of the least often studied books of scripture Few studies of scripture combine so few verses with so much intrigue and mystery as the book of Jude
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