Daily Meditations on the Bible / We stand with Israel
… our Savior …
As we continue with Jude’s doxology, we follow him from praising God for what he does for us (keeping us from stumbling and presenting us without fault) to describing the attributes of God. The first attribute is that He is the only God. There is no other God. He does not have any competition.
Today we turn to his most important work; the saving of his creation.
Continue reading “Jude 1: 25b — Saved”
—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.
As we continue to parse Jude’s closing thoughts, we run into this interesting phrase, “ — hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.” Whose clothing is Jude talking about? Yours? Mine? His?
The answer, it seems, is “all the above.” Peter references this idea in his second letter when he writes, “This is especially true of those who follow the corrupt desire of the flesh and despise authority.” (2 Peter 2: 10)
Continue reading “Jude 1: 23c — Corrupted Clothes”
…save others by snatching them from the fire…
James is offering us some parting words of wisdom and encouragement. By building yourself up in faith and praying in the Holy Spirit we remain strongly bound to God’s love. Then he tells us to be merciful to those who doubt. Today he adds, “… save others by snatching them from the fire…”
What fire?
In verse 7 Jude writes that Sodom and Gomorrah “… serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.” Ouch! That sounds unpleasant!
Continue reading “Jude 1: 23a — Rescue”
Woe to them! …they have rushed for profit into Balaam’s error;
The story of Balaam has always been a bit of an enigma for me. The parts of the story recorded in the Bible are both amazing and sketchy. Some people might say this is a shortcoming on the part of the Scriptures, but I don’t think so for two reasons. The first, as I have explained before, is that I believe the Bible is exactly the way God wants it to be. The second is that the apparent gaps in the story are consistent with God’s storytelling in other parts of the Bible. All of the Bible, whether Old or New Testaments, is written in a way that requires us to think.
So what do we know about Balaam? What was this “error” that Jude refers to?
Continue reading “Jude 1:11b — Balaam’s Error”
Yet these people slander whatever they do not understand, and the very things they do understand by instinct—as irrational animals do—will destroy them.
Jude continues his discourse on the ungodly who infiltrate the Body of Christ with this: “They slander what they do not understand.” I think Jude is being rather kind here. The implication is that if these people could understand who God is they would change their ways.
I like this view of these ungodly people. It is a view that offers hope. Hope that maybe, at some point, they will come to understand the importance of bowing to God. But Jude is realistic. He knows that if they do not bow to God, they will be destroyed.
Continue reading “Jude 1: 10 — Horse and Water”
They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.
As Jude dives into the topic of his letter, we immediately understand that there are three groups of people involved.
The first group, the group that James is part of, are “loved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ.”
The second group, not mentioned by name but implied, are the people of the world who do not know Jesus but need Him. These people are not “lost” to Christ, but neither are they yet “found.” The one thing about this group that applies to all of them is that none of them claim to be Christians.
Continue reading “Jude 1: 7b — The Third Group”
In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion.
Jude is talking about ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality. This passage is EXHIBIT “A” in the world’s case against Christianity. The world’s point of view is that everything is okay unless everyone agrees that it is not okay. The judge of what is okay and not okay is the imaginary collective conscience of the entire world.
What has the entire world ever agreed on? Can you think of one thing? No, I can’t either. This argument assures than nobody will ever be able to accuse anyone else of doing what is wrong.
Wait! That’s not right! People tell Christians that they are wrong all the time.
Continue reading “Jude 1: 7a — The Undiscovered Country”
And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day.
In verse 5, Jude begins, “Though you already know all this…” and then tells me this thing about angels that I didn’t know. Maybe there is information about angels that was common knowledge in Jude’s day that didn’t make it into the Bible.
In some respects, this information should not surprise us. We know that God created all things (Colossians 1: 16), and we know about Satan (Job 1:6). What we don’t know is why a created angelic being would turn against God.
Continue reading “Jude 1: 6 — Wayward Angels”
Though you already know all this, 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.
Having introduced himself in his letter and explained his topic, Jude begins a short review of history.
In Sunday school, I learned that Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt. I was also told it took forty years to get there. One day it dawned on me that forty years is a really long time. How is it possible that a trip could take that long? (Even if you only walked one mile each day, a trip of forty years would cover 14,600 miles!)
Of course, there is a lot more to the story.
Continue reading “Jude 1: 5 — A Change of Residence”
… into a license for immorality …
What is the most immoral thing you can think of?
Now that you have that in mind, ask yourself: What is the most immoral thing God can think of?
The book of Jeremiah answers this question. In the first chapter, verse eleven, Jeremiah records the essence of God’s judgment of immorality against Jerusalem:
Continue reading “Jude 1: 4c — The Slippery Slope”