(From) Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ…: to those who have been called, having been loved in Father God and preserved by Jesus Christ. ·May mercy be multiplied to YOU, also peace and love. (Jude 1-2[i])

Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to YOU[ii] about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge YOUto 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, …ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into {sensuality} and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord. ·…I want to remind YOU that the Lord at one time delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe. ·And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their [own] dwelling-[place]—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day. ·In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah…, {which} gave themselves up to sexual immorality [Gr. ek-porneusasai] and {pursued unnatural desire}, …serve as an example for those who suffer… eternal fire. ·In the same way, these [dreamers] pollute their own bodies, reject authority and heap abuse on…·…whatever they do not understand, [yet they are being corrupted by] the very things they do understand by instinct. ·They have taken the way of Cain, … rushed for profit into Balaam's error; they have been destroyed in Korah's rebellion. ·[These are (hidden) reefs] at YOUR love feasts—eating with YOU without the slightest qualm, [shepherding] only themselves. They are clouds without rain…; autumn trees without fruit…; ·…wild waves of the sea foaming up their shame… ·Grumblers and faultfinders, they follow their own evil desires; they boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage. (Jud.3-8,10-13,16 NIV[iii] {ESV} [S4A])

The Lord is coming… ·to {execute judgment on all}, and to convict {everyone}: of all the ungodly acts they have committed in their ungodliness, and of all the defiant words ungodly sinners have spoken against him... ·Remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold: ·“In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.” ·{It is these worldly people} who…do not have the Spirit {who are causing divisions}. ·But YOU, dear friends, by building yourselves up in YOUR most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, ·keep yourselves in God's love as YOU wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring YOU to eternal life. ·Be merciful to those who doubt; ·save others by snatching them from the fire; to others show mercy mixed with fear—hating even the clothing {defiled by their bodies}. ·To him who is able to [guard] YOU from stumbling and to present YOU before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy— ·to the only God our Savior, {through Jesus Christ our Lord}, be glory, majesty, power and authority: before all ages, now and {forever}! (Jud.14b-15,17-25 NIV {NRSV} [S4A]))

Jude had wanted to write to this group of believers (‘YOU’, plural) about ‘the salvation we share’ in Christ. But instead he feels obliged to call them to ‘contend for the faith’ against a threat that Jude and the other apostles associate ‘the last times’. This threat comes from within the church. Secondly, it involves ungodly people with social and religious power. Third, it concerns the practice, or tolerance of forms of ‘sensuality’ that pervert ‘the grace of God’ and compete with the sole lordship of Jesus. There are strong similarities between what Jude confronts and things that are happening in many churches today. So we especially need to pay attention what Jude says about how we respond to such threats out of the Father's love, mercy and peace.

By looking at the Scriptures Jude uses, we understand first of all that the threat is coming from within the church. In the story of the Exodus, the Torah speaks of a ‘mixed-multitude’ that was led out of Egypt (Ex.12:38 ESV), and how it was the ‘cravings’ of these ungodly ‘mixed ones’[iv] (‘the rabble with’ the people of Israel) which led the Israelites into complaining and unbelief—which resulted in a whole generation of ‘unbelievers’ among God's people dying in the desert (Num.11:4-6 NIV; 13:26-14:35). Even so now, Jude says. Ungodly ‘grumblers and faultfinders’ who ‘follow their own evil desires’ have ‘slipped in’ to the church.

He then uses several biblical illustrations to show that the problem comes from ungodly people with social and religious power. Like the ‘angels’ or ‘sons of God’ mentioned in the Torah (Gen.6:1-2), they occupy social positions of authority, but have ‘abandoned’  their true ‘home’. Thus, they are also like the social and religious leaders who took part in ‘Korah's rebellion’ (Num.16:1-35), and like the lying Israelite prophets that Jeremiah called (‘dreamers’). Because they gave the ‘delusions of their own minds’ the same weight as the Word of God (Jer.23:25-29). Further, they are like the false prophet Balaam. Even though he took great care with his prophetic words so as not to curse Israel publicly, he still seduced God's people to benefit himself—by advising foreign women to entice Israelite men into idolatry and sexual sin (Num. 22:16-18ff ; 25:1-9; 31:15-16).

Interestingly, the first of these stories also involved sexual sin (Gen.6:2), as does a third Bible story referred to by Jude—about the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. He uses this story to suggest that the sin of ‘sensuality’ in the church involves people ‘pursuing unnatural desire’ as well as ‘giving themselves up to (hetero)-sexual immorality’ [Gr. ek-porneusasai]. For the ‘detestable practices’ of the people of Sodom (Ezk.16:50) included homosexual behavior as well as adultery, and other forms of sinful heterosexual intercourse (Gen.19:4-8; Jer.23:14). All these forms of sexual sin ‘defile’ our bodies and reject the authority of Christ (Jud.8,4). Paul agrees (Rom.1:24-27; 1 Cor.6:16-20), and treats both homosexual behavior and sinful heterosexual practices [Gr. pornois] as incompatible with being heirs of the kingdom of God.[v]

How then does Jude want us to respond to such influential ungodly people in the church? First, we must not allow ourselves to be intimidated by them; for the power they seem to have is empty. Though they ‘foam up their shame like wild ocean waves’, he says, they do not have the Spirit. So they are in fact like fruitless trees and clouds without rain; and their rejection of true biblical authority amounts to railing on about things they do not understand. Jesus will come to deal with them, though he may not do so as quickly as we would like—as he indicated in one of his parables. Since things work differently in our Father's family kingdom, we must learn to act with maturity and mercy like he does (Med.#12)—with patient hope that some will repent (2 Pet.3:9) and with confidence that those planted in his kingdom by the enemy will eventually be weeded out (Med.#17).

Secondly, we need to ‘keep’ ourselves in our Father's love, the One who called us, so that his mercy, peace, and love may multiply in us—even as we await the fullness of mercy and eternal life that are ours in our Lord Jesus Christ, the One who preserves ('keeps') us. For it is our Father who is able to ‘guard’ us from stumbling so that we finish well and arrive in ‘his glorious presence without fault and with great joy’. Yet to maintain confidence in our Father's eternal glory, majesty, power and authority, we must continually build up ourselves, and our faith by ‘praying in the Holy Spirit’, under the sole lordship of Jesus.

Thirdly, the ‘mountain’ represented by ungodly people in the church will not be ‘removed’ by ordinary displays of ‘power and might’, but by the power of the Holy Spirit (Zec.4:6)—when Jesus comes into the situation (2 Cor.4:5; 5:1-5). To cooperate with him, Jude tells us to demonstrate our Father's mercy, love and peace in different ways to three kinds of people. With the believers who have begun to doubt, due to the ongoing presence and influence of ungodly people and leaders in the church, we need to simply be merciful in how we respond to them and to their doubts. With those believers who are beginning to imitate the behavior of the ungodly ones and also ‘follow the way of Cain’, we need to be more proactive. In order to pull them back, we need to warn them the way God warned Cain: Don't give in to your passions but learn instead—with the help of the Spirit—to master the sin that is ‘crouching at your door’ (Gen.4:6).

With the ungodly people of influence in our midst, we also need to show mercy, but ‘mercy mixed with fear’. This means distancing ourselves from the defiling behavior with which such people have ‘clothed’ their bodies (Med.#32). Though these unbelieving leaders ‘shepherd only themselves’, they are still ‘hidden reefs’ on which ‘little ones’ in the church may yet shipwreck their faith (Med.#18; 1 Tim.1:19). This ‘distancing’, however, is a disciplinary form of ‘judging’ that is only to be applied within the church, not with ungodly people outside it (1 Cor.5:1-12). And the goal in the church must always be repentance and restoration, lest we ourselves become like the unforgiving servant in Jesus' parable (Med.#19) and fall to temptation ourselves. For we too could end up walking down the same dark paths of compromise (Med.#53) and deception (Med.#55) referred to in John's first letter, or two similar ones: of fear (Med.#52) and hatred toward fellow believers (Med.#54).

Father God, our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord, I praise you that you love me and are able to guard me from stumbling, and so present me faultless and full of joy in your glorious presence. Multiply your love, mercy and peace to me that I may be mature and merciful with others like you are. May the glory, majesty, power and authority that are yours before all ages, also be yours in this present time and forever! (Jud.1,2,24,25; Mat.5:48; Lk.6:36)

[i] These first two verses (also used in Med.#9) are my own translation—based on the Greek text and the KJV.

[ii] As in my own translations, I capitalize the 2^nd person (‘YOU’) when the Greek pronoun or verb form is plural.

[iii] In this meditation, the version of the NIV being used is the 2011 revision.

[iv] ‘Mixed ones’ [Gr. epimiktos] is the word used in the Septuagint (Num.11:4 LXX).

[v] The words Paul uses in these two texts to describe homosexual practice are: ‘male sex partners' (lit. 'couching males’) [Gr. arsenokoitais] (1 Tim. 1:10), also when some are ‘passive males’ [Gr. malakoi] and others more dominant 'male sex partners' [Gr. arsenokoitai] (1 Cor.6:9).