The Faithful Fight
November 5, 2023
Jude 1:1-4
1 Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and a brother of James,
To those who have been called, who are loved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ:
2 Mercy, peace and love be yours in abundance.
3 Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people. 4 For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.
Read Jude 1:1-2
1. As a background for studying the book of Jude, watch the video from The Bible Project at https://bibleproject.com/explore/video/jude/
2. How does verse 1 look back on something that has already happened, something that is happening now, and something that will happen in the future? Describe your own faith journey in terms of looking back, looking at this moment, and looking forward.
3. Discuss how the three attributes in verse 2 function together. What other passages in scripture can you find that speak of those three attributes (either all three together, or independent of one another)?
4. Discuss the idea of ‘abundance’ and what it might look like when applied specifically to each of these three attributes.
Read Jude 1:3-4
5. Based on your reading of these verses, what is the situation Jude seems to be addressing in this letter?
6. What do you imagine Jude would have written about ‘the salvation we share’ if he had not been compelled to address the specific situation he addresses? (This requires, of course, speculation on our part, so we won’t cling too tightly to whatever answers we come up with.)
7. In this context, what does it mean ‘to contend for the faith?’ Where/how in our current context do we need to contend for the faith? How might we do that?
8. To what event is Jude referring when he writes ‘once for all’?
9. Jude does not identify the ‘certain individuals’ by name. But he does identify them by three specific characteristics.
a. What are those three characteristics?
b. What is meant by those three characteristics?
c. What do those characteristics look like in this day and age?
d. In what ways are you tempted to fall into those three traps?