Contending For The Faith

 

THE LETTER OF JUDE

CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH

Jude 3-4

3 Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. 4 For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.

NIV

It is always a good thing to write about the salvation we share. There is so much that is positive about our faith, about our salvation. We are certainly admonished to encourage one another and build each other up until we reach unity in the faith. Jude is no exception to this as he is saying he is very eager to write about the salvation he shares with his fellow believers. We are aware they all did not have the complete word of God as we do, which serves us with the ability to explore and know everything about our salvation, and the grace, peace, and love of God. It is unfortunate some have made it into a yoke of bondage seeing only that which we are not to do rather than what we should do because of our authority which has been given to us. This seems to be the case here for the reason Jude is telling them to contend or fight, struggle for the faith. This is fighting for what is true, in the face of certain men whose condemnation was written about and have slipped in among them. False teachers, but not someone who comes boldly forth and declares something other than Jesus crucified. No, these men slipped in, like wolves in sheep’s clothing. The Greek word translated as slipped carries the meaning settle in alongside, or lodging stealthily. These are men who came in the name of the Lord, perhaps even stayed for a season, even joined the local gathering of believers. But they had perverted the grace of God and were urging others to enjoy the freedom to indulge in certain pleasures that were of an immoral nature. Although this same word is used by Mark in a list of attitudes and behaviors, such as greed, malice, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly. This license of immorality covers all this and more, for if we were to engage in this kind of attitude and behaviors we would be denying the grace of God, Jesus our only Sovereign and Lord. There are attitudes which are not right, and behaviors which are not acceptable, and it would seem these men that had slipped in were promoting, perhaps even ever so deceitfully or craftily, it was unnoticed until it was too late. Jude is making the church aware of these ungodly men and we too should be careful not to be deceived by those who would slip in among us and that is not just in the sense of the local church, but with the culture of media we have today, these men can slip into the church at large. This is why it is so important that we encourage or exhort each other, or fight for the faith, so no one among us is deceived by these silver-tongued purveyors of falsehoods. They must be exposed for who they are, ungodly men already condemned. Let us continue to contend for our faith.