Jude

What Jude is about

Jude says at the outset that he had intended to write about something else — the salvation they share — and changed course because of an urgent problem. Certain people have crept in unnoticed, teaching that God’s grace makes behaviour irrelevant, and using that freedom for exploitation. Jude tells his readers to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

What follows is a rapid series of examples, stacked up: Israel in the wilderness, angels who left their proper place, Sodom and Gomorrah, Cain, Balaam, Korah. Then a string of images — waterless clouds, fruitless trees, wild waves foaming out their shame, wandering stars. Jude is not building an argument so much as producing a description that his readers will recognise when they look around the room.

He also draws on Jewish writings outside the Old Testament, including a quotation from the Book of Enoch. Christian traditions have understood this differently over the centuries — quoting a text is not the same as canonising it — and the site does not settle the question.

What lifts Jude above a denunciation is its final third. Build yourselves up in your most holy faith, pray in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God. And then a strikingly graded instruction: have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them from the fire; to still others show mercy with fear. Not everyone in a difficult situation is in the same position, and Jude says to treat them differently.

The closing doxology is one of the most quoted blessings in the church: to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy.

Where it sits in the story

Jude overlaps substantially with 2 Peter, and the two are usually studied together. Its author identifies himself as the brother of James, which traditionally makes him a brother of Jesus — and notably he introduces himself as a servant rather than a relative.

Why it is worth reading

Because twenty-five verses cover the whole distance from a sharp warning to a tender benediction, and because the mercy in its closing paragraph is the strongest evidence that the severity earlier in the letter was never about contempt.