Hey Jude! (Jude 1: 1 - 25)

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paradox3

paradox3

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Bible Gateway passage: Jude - New English Translation

Salutation - From Jude, a slave of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those who are called, wrapped in the love of God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ. May mercy, peace, and love be lavished on you! Condemnation of the False Teachers - Dear friends, although I have been eager to write to...
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Tradition holds that this epistle was written by one of the brothers of Jesus. It is addressed to an early Christian community.

Jude deems this community to be losing its way. Ungodly men have infiltrated and are denying Jesus Christ. They have turned the grace of God into a license for evil.

They are described as waterless clouds, carried along by the wind. Autumn trees without fruit. Wild sea waves. Wayward stars.

Jude provides examples from the OT and other writings where people (angels, too!) have gone astray and been punished.

Jude asks the people to recall the predictions of the apostles. At the end of time, scoffers are expected. They will be worldly, divisive and devoid of the Spirit.

Jude calls community members to build themselves up in faith and pray. Have mercy on those who waver, he says. Save others by snatching them out of the fire. For still others, combine mercy with the fear of God. But hate even the clothes stained by flesh.
 
Reactions?

I have been chuckling to myself about the scoffers who are expected at the end of time. Am I one of the scoffers, I wonder?

There is some harsh judgement in this passage but I love the poetry of v. 12-13 (Well, after the part about the dangerous reefs at love feasts.)

"They are waterless clouds, carried along by the winds; autumn trees without fruit --
Twice dead, uprooted; wild sea waves spewing out the foam of their shame; wayward stars."

Actually I don't like the utter depths of eternal darkness at the end of v.13 a whole lot either. :unsure:

Jude and Revelation were considered to be companion books of the bible back in my Sunday School days. I don't recall ever reading either of them until recently.
 
So basically someone is stirring up (redacted) in the community that Jude is writing to so he launches on an apocalyptic tirade against those people. At least that's how I read this.

Interesting how he talks about "Jesus,[x] having saved the[y] people out of the land of Egypt". So it appears that Jesus = God is well-established at this point. Need to look up when we think this was written. Because I don't recall anywhere else that Jesus is credited with saving people out of Egypt. Or is he speaking metaphorically here?

The mention of Enoch is another interesting point since the Books of Enoch did not end up in canon in the end. The footnote in the NET translation on BibleGateway says the quote Jude uses is from I Enoch but differs from the extent text.

Footnote from NET said:
An apparent quotation from 1 En. 1:9. There is some doubt as to whether Jude is actually quoting from the text of 1 Enoch; the text here in Jude differs in some respects from the extant text of this pseudepigraphic book. It is sometimes suggested that Jude may instead have been quoting from oral tradition which had roots older than the written text.
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paradox3 said:
I have been chuckling to myself about the scoffers who are expected at the end of time. Am I one of the scoffers, I wonder?
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On paper, yes. I think we are precisely who he had in mind. Except he wasn't writing for the 21st century but is pretty clearly addressing a problem in a community contemporary with himself. So may be a mistake to read too much into it about the modern world.
 
"Jude" is a mistranslation used to distinguish this "Judas" from Judas the traitor. Jesus' brother Judas may be the Judas who speaks in John 14:22:
"Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him: "Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the world?"
Strikingly, Judas alludes to 1 Enoch in vss. 6, 14-15 and to the Testament of Moses in vs. 9.
Judas is combatting a heresy that constues God's grace as license to commit sexual immorality with impunity.
 
Mystic said:
Judas is combatting a heresy that constues God's grace as license to commit sexual immorality with impunity.
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Now that you have named it, yes, sexual immorality seems to be a theme in Jude.

V. 25 reads as vaguely dirty (with its clothes stained by the flesh) doesn't it?
 
2nd century Jewish Christian historian Hegesippus relates this incident in the lives of Jude's grandchildren:
‘Of the family of the Lord there were still living (in 81 to 96) the grandchildren of Jude, who is said to have been the Lord’s brother according to the flesh. Information was given that they belonged to the family of David, and they were brought to the Emperor Domitian by the Evocatus (an equestrian soldier). For Domitian feared the coming of Christ as Herod also had feared it.

And he asked them if they were descendants of David, and they confessed that they were. Then he asked them how much property they had, or how much money they owned. And both of them answered that they had only nine thousand denarii half of which belonged to each of them; and this property did not consist of silver, but of a piece of land which contained only thirty-nine plethora, and from which they raised their taxes and supported themselves by their own labor.

Then they showed their hands, exhibiting the hardness of their bodies and the callousness produced upon their hands by continuous toil as evidence of
their own labor. And when they were asked concerning Christ and his kingdom, of what sort it was and where and when it was to appear, they answered that it was not a temporal nor an earthly kingdom, but a heavenly and angelic one, which would appear at the end of the world, when he should come in glory to judge the quick and the dead, and to give unto every one according to his works. Upon hearing this, Domitian did not pass judgment against them but despising them as of no account, he let them go, and by a decree put a stop to the persecution of the Church.

But when they were released they ruled the churches because they were witnesses (for Jesus) and were also relatives of the Lord. And peace being established, they lived until the time of Trajan (from 98 to 117 AD). “These things are related by Hegesippus” in Eusebius, Church History, Book III, ch. 19–20

“For Domitian feared the coming of Christ as Herod also had feared it.…And when they (Jude’s grandsons) were asked concerning Christ and his kingdom, of what sort it was and where and when it was to appear, they answered that it was not a temporal nor an earthly kingdom, but a heavenly and angelic one, which would appear at the end of the world, when he should come in glory to judge the quick and the dead, and to give unto every one according to his works. Upon hearing this, Domitian did not pass judgment against them but despising them as of no account, he let them go, and by a decree put a stop to the persecution of the Church.” Eusebius Church History 3.19,20
 
The second coming can be fearsome in apocalyptic literature.

Funny thing. In our liturgy we say:

Christ has died.
Christ is risen.
Christ will come again.

This always sounds like a wonderful mystery to me.
 
Mendalla said:
On paper, yes. I think we are precisely who he had in mind. Except he wasn't writing for the 21st century but is pretty clearly addressing a problem in a community contemporary with himself. So may be a mistake to read too much into it about the modern world.
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But wasn't Balams error quoted in Jude? Was it a story of his time? And are we not reading it now in Jude, for our time?
 
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According to Pew Research, about 40% of Americans thought they were living in end times in 2022. Betcha the percentage would be higher now.
 
Numbers 6:23-26 is one of the 2 standard biblical benedictions used in many Protestant churches to end their services. The other benediction is Jude 24-25:
"Now to Him who is able to keep you from falling, and to make you stand without blemish in the presence of His glory with rejoicing, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen."
 
Mystic said:
Numbers 6:23-26 is one of the 2 standard biblical benedictions used in many Protestant churches to end their services. The other benediction is Jude 24-25:
"Now to Him who is able to keep you from falling, and to make you stand without blemish in the presence of His glory with rejoicing, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen."
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I don't think I've ever heard the one from Jude used before, just the one from Numbers which I can probably recite by heart I've heard it so many times.
 
Oh yes. I didn't know that blessing was from Numbers!

Jude 24-25 is not familiar but I recognize part of it from a hymn.
 
"... Earnestly contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints (Jude 3)."
Many Christians cite this text as a mandate for the discipline of Christian apologetics, the rational defense of the faith against skeptics.
 
Mystic said:
"... Earnestly contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints (Jude 3)."
Many Christians cite this text as a mandate for the discipline of Christian apologetics, the rational defense of the faith against skeptics.
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Yeah, I can see that fitting as a mandate for apologetics.
 
Let's find Waldo. "Waldo" is a neglected spiritual discipline in Jude (also in Paul) camouflaged by the jargon with which it is expressed. Can you find the verse I have in mind?
 
I remember why I dislike this letter so much.

It totally skews the Sodom and Gommorah story into being about sexual immorality rather than inhospitality/injustice.

The letter isn't anywhere in the Common Lectionary, is it? I just went looking and it appears not.
 
BetteTheRed said:
I remember why I dislike this letter so much.

It totally skews the Sodom and Gommorah story into being about sexual immorality rather than inhospitality/injustice.
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Nope.
"They (the Sodomites) called to Lot: "Where are the men who came to you tonight? bring them out to us so that we may know (sexually humiliate them) them (Genesis 19:5)." Rightly the note in the NRSV). In Hebrew "know" often means "to have sex" and thus Lot construes their request as "wicked."
 
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