All for one, and one for all

Jude 1 - Week #2 of Jude

Just a note to say that the Bavinck Reader’s Guide has been pushed back until Thursday’s newsletter as I’ve got further work to do on it, but it shouldn’t be any later than that. If you didn’t catch Wednesday’s episode of Consider the Raven’s, I would recommend getting stuck into that:

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Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and a brother of James:
To those who are the called, loved, by God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ.

Christian Standard Bible, (Holman Bible Publishers, 2020) Jude 1

Verses to read: Matthew 13:55, Mark 6:3, Romans 1:7, 1 Corinthians 1:24

Adsum, a servant of Jesus Christ and a brother of Josh:
To those who are the called, loved, by God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ.
What do we know about this article? That I have a brother—who most of you don’t know, or know of—called Josh, that I’m a servant of Christ, AND that if you are called, loved, and kept by God, then this article is for you.

I’d say that’s a pretty good place to start, especially given how when we read the Bible, it can often be hard to know exactly who the audience is, here though, the questions we’re left with which are most prominent are:

1. Who is Adsum (or rather Jude)

2. Who is Josh (James)

3. Am I part of the called?

Those are the three questions we’ll seek to answer today, not the me-centred ones, but the important ones, the ones which tell us who this is from, and who this is for.
Let’s get stuck in.

Who is Jude

I will say this, we could beat around the bush here and pretend like we’re going to consider other options, but in all honesty, I don’t see any wisdom in playing with our food before we eat it, so to speak. Jude, the brother of James, is most likely, beyond the point of reasonable doubt, Jesus’ half-brother, having been born to Mary and Joseph. We have no reason to doubt this, the only real debate has been raised because of certain popish dogmas which hold that Mary stayed a virgin her whole life—yes I said popish.

Jude, or Judas, is named in both Matthew’s Gospel and Mark’s gospel:

Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother called Mary, and his brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas?

Christian Standard Bible, (Holman Bible Publishers, 2020), Matthew 13:55

Isn’t this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? And aren’t his sisters here with us?” So they were offended by him.

Christian Standard Bible, (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2020), Mk 6:3

Some have said that because this is asking a question that we are meant to simply answer:

“No”

But that doesn’t make sense, for something to be mentioned in not one, but two gospels would at least have us assume that there is some reason for this. Not only that but in John’s gospel we read:

For not even his brothers believed in him.

Christian Standard Bible, (Holman Bible Publishers, 2020), John 7:5

And in Luke’s account in Acts, we read:

They all were continually united in prayer, along with the women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.

Christian Standard Bible, (Holman Bible Publishers, 2020), Acts 1:14

All four of the gospel writers are of one accord, the brothers existed, they were unbelievers in Jesus’ lifetime and came to Christ at some point before/during the events depicted in Acts 1.

What’s more, both brothers boldly proclaim, in similar language even that they are servants of Jesus (Jude 1, James 1:1) happy to be placed below their half-brother, hailing him their Messiah and Lord.

This should be profound to us. There are only two writers in all of the New Testament who could have any reason to boast and it would have been these two, born of Mary, from the same flesh as the King of Kings. They don’t though. It does us no good to try and gloss over this, that Jude is Jesus’ brother speaks both to his humility in writing this letter and also the indwelling power of the Spirit. Not only are Jude and James the most likely culprits to fall to pride, but they are also the ones with the most reason to disbelieve Jesus if he was indeed only a man.

Who is James?

Following on from there, we might think that this is a rather obvious point, James is just Jude’s brother, right? Well, not exactly.

James, as mentioned in Acts, was a man of some great import, especially in Jerusalem. Speaking of this Calvin says:

“…we may gather out of this place, that they made no small account of James, forasmuch as he doth with his voice and consent so confirm the words of Peter, that they are all of his mind. And we shall see afterwards how great his authority was at Jerusalem.”

John Calvin, Commentary upon the Acts of the Apostles

Both in Acts 15 & 21, we read about how James was called upon to give wise counsel on matters which Paul brought before the Elders in Jerusalem—again, we have no reason to doubt that this is the James spoken on in James, Jude, Matthew, Mark, and Acts 1:14. It would seem that Jude, though probably also an elder or missionary, was drawing not from his own authority, but that of his brother. It would seem that he was not only willing to defer to his heavenly brother, but also to one of his earthly brothers too. (Beyond this, we can also see a great amount of similarity between the two with regards to their typically Jewish forms of writing, teaching, and communication see last week’s article for some further detail on that.)

I won’t go into further detail at this time on his relationship with James, simply because there isn’t much more data I can provide, what is clear is this:

Jude served both of his brothers, one greater and one lesser.

Am I part of the called?

I’m not going to cover pre-destination right, maybe at some point, but not here.
What’s important is that we understand that this letter, as we mentioned last week, is catholic, i.e. for the whole church.

Where we read in other epistles, especially from Paul, that the letters are written to specific Churches, this one is far broader:

“To those who are the called, loved, by God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ.”

If you are a Christian, pay attention to this book, it is hard to understand at times and contains things that have been debated for a long time, but we’ll be in this book for at least 25 weeks(!!!), there’s enough time to go over those details. If you have questions along the way, I’m happy to slow down and address those, but for now, sufficed to say that this book is meant to be read by the church and like “all [other] Scripture is inspired by God, and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” (2 Tim 3:16–17)

Dr Thomas Schriener says in his commentary:

“We can also say that the message of judgment is especially relevant to people today, for our churches are prone to sentimentality, suffer from moral breakdown, and too often fail to pronounce a definitive word of judgment because of an inadequate definition of love. Jude’s letter reminds us that errant teaching and dissolute living have dire consequences. Hence, we should not relegate his words to a crabby temperament that threatens with judgment those he dislikes but as a warning to beloved believers (vv. 3, 17) to escape a deadly peril.”

Thomas R. Schreiner, 1, 2 Peter, Jude, The New American Commentary, (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2003)

Those are not words to be taken lightly, and neither is this book. Jude is a small, heavy book with much to say to us if we have ears to hear. In our day and time, with ministers of the Gospel dropping like flies and false teaching on the rise, we’d do well to heed to warnings laid out here. What’s more, by learning to dig into scripture, even Scripture we find hard to understand, we can be better equipped to make a defence for our faith, and to grow in our relationship with our Lord.

Jesus died for us, not so that we could sit cosily by whilst snakes and wolves invade the church, but so that we might join with Paul in praying:

“We are asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, so that you may have great endurance and patience, joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the saints’ inheritance in the light. He has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son he loves. In him we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

Christian Standard Bible, (Holman Bible Publishers, 2020), Colossians 1:9–14

Amen

Grace and Peace,

Adsum Try Ravenhill