Topical Studies
Jude
(From Forerunner Commentary)
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Philippians 1:27 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
Paul wrote this to the Philippian church, considered to be one of his better, most beloved congregations, before the major apostasy of the late first century hit full stride. However, he was already beginning to warn them that they needed to be united in one spirit and one mind and strive, show some effort, work hard, to keep the unity of the faith.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Jude
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Jude 1:1 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
One commentary opines that Jude is the most neglected book in all the New Testament, and it is not difficult to consider this to be true. It is primarily known for verse 3, "earnestly contend for the faith," and for verses 24 and 25, a noble and uplifting praise of God. The book is only twenty-five verses long, and it is tucked between the oft-quoted Johannine epistles and the well-worn, dog-eared pages of Revelation. In addition, Jude does not provide much in the way of doctrine or Christian living. Besides this, it is almost a carbon copy of II Peter 2. Most of Jude is a scathing denunciation of false teachers—the smoke almost rises from its pages. The denunciation is sandwiched between two short, three-verse sections in which he exhorts them to faith and love. One of the factors that nearly kept it out of the canon was that Jude quotes two passages from apocryphal books, "The Assumption of Moses" and "The Book of Enoch," both of which were written between the writing of Malachi and beginning of the New Testament. Though they were apocryphal, Jude has no problem quoting passages from them. Though it seems as if this book has several prohibitive factors, these are merely human perceptions. God has no problem with it, as He included it within the Bible for a reason. He saw something in it that would be of great value to His people down through the ages, and perhaps, due to His omniscience, He inspired Jude to write it specifically for the end-time church when the events that the apostle mentions would be most applicable. Certainly, it applied to those in the first century, since he wrote it to counter specific problems of the time. It really is a timeless book because the circumstances of Jude's day crop up from time to time within the church.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Jude
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Revelation 2:4-5 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
The Ephesian church did have a problem. It was not in holding false teachers at arm's length, but in tending to become lax, to "drift with the tide," as it were, and this made them an easy target for false teachers. In this way, their weakness was, in a way, connected to their strength. They approached matters somewhat lackadaisically when times were fairly good, but when times became bad, they seemed to be able to stand up for the truth. At certain times, their devotion to God's way left a lot to be desired. Just before the apostle John died in about AD 100, this was very much the case, and he really had to rouse them to get them back. From what we know from church history, by this time the membership of the true church was small and concentrated mostly around John in the church at Ephesus and some of the nearby towns in Asia Minor that he directly pastored. Jude recognized the beginning of this drifting when he wrote in the mid-60s. All the apostles wrote similar things in their epistles: that the members of the church needed to get on the stick because false doctrines and false teachers were already in evidence among them and beginning to cause problems. If they did not root them out quickly, destruction would follow. The brethren were far too tolerant of divergent beliefs and practices, and Jude, especially, makes this point rather bluntly. He basically yells at them. Those who know Greek intimately say his language is very terse and sharp, and with it he lays in to them for being too tolerant of untruth. His brother, Jesus, is more circumspect in His wording in Revelation 2:5. To paraphrase, he says, "I would rather that you were strong all the time. You need to go back and do the first works and remain strong so that these false teachers do not get a foothold in the church in the first place."
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Jude
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