Jude 1-4
We're delving into the Book of Jude this week. It's only one chapter with 25 verses, but it has much for us to learn and consider. Jude begins his letter with the typical greeting, but then gets right to what's on his heart--false teaching. He calls us as believers and part of the Church to guard against allowing false teaching to come in and negatively influence us. "I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith. . ." (Jude 3).
As I considered this call to action, I looked in a thesaurus at the word "contend" and found words like assert, maintain and declare. That was helpful because it allowed me to get a better grasp on, and comprehension of, exactly what Jude is challenging us to do.
So how will you, or how do you, contend for the faith? How do you guard against and combat allowing false teaching to creep in and influence your Christian walk and witness? What about at your church? Tami W.
P.S. Get more out of our Jude study and tune in to our Back to the Bible series this week, Jude's Guide to Religious Phoneys.
We are directed to put things to the 'test'. I have to admit that this can take time: reflection, research and possible remedy. Memorizing locations in the Bible is a weakness of mine. I wish I were better at it.
I hate to say this, because it can sound so much like a cliche. However, the only real way to buffet your self against false teaching is to earnestly study the truth - to get back to the bible. There I said it.
But Tammy, while I know that, while I believe that, it seems so hard to do that. Ideally its not just reading the word, but meditating on it and memorizing it. But its such a struggle to even read much more do the other things.
This is where the guarding has to start, serious, deliberate and proportionate engagement with the word of God.
(I am preaching here - to myself - so I guess an AMEN!! is appropriate).
This seems to be a growing problem in our local churches. We tend to give in to, what we consider to be, such a small change in our faith. Snow flakes are small to. But enough of them will burry you.
Jude knew what to contend for and what to allow others to disagree with him on. I know those who want to “contend” for every aspect of their “faith”. However, in reality they simply enjoy a good fight. There are some things that I believe and hold dear, that are simply personal preferences; these are not essentials of the faith. On those I need to show grace and realize that there is a wideness in God’s mercy to allow us to disagree. I don’t think that those are the things that Jude is talking about. He seems to be talking about the non negotiables. We need to know what are the things that we cannot budge on and contend for those. For the rest, we need to realize that other godly men and women will study God’s word and will come to a different understanding than us.
For Carol: Locations in the Bible...helpful hint.
I seldom open my concordance any more. I found I can go on the internet and put in the few words I'm remembering and it's amazing how often the reference and verse pop up. It has been very helpful for me.
Proverbs 15:1 A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger. Via con Dios amigos!
This comes as a knee jerk to me and rightly so. We need to be reminded ever so often that we have a part to play in the building up of the kingdom of God. alot of false teachers and preachers has been creeping up and deceiving God's people not because we dont love the lord but simply because we are not trusting him as much as we aught to. As a child of the faith i was told by my pastor to follow her has she follows the lord and if there is a hint that she is going off track i should seek the lord and pray for her.She also taught us to conduct our own study and test the scriptures for ourselves after a pastor or teacher had taught it. She wanted us to depend on God and not on man.
I too have a challenge reading , meditating and memorizing scriptures simply because i have gotten lazy and complacent. And i have seen how this has negatively impacted my walk with the lord. I no longer have a close freindship with Him; we are more like acqaintances. The word of God is truth and life. There are so many things in the world to distract us from doing what is important. We chose to stay in this faith so therfore we need to do what is necessary to build it.
I pray for people like myself to fall in love with the lord again and his word. I pray that we will always make time to hear what he is saying to us.
God bless you.
PLEASE HELP!!! Just how do I content/defend the faith? Seriously; when someone knocks (says something bad) the faith, my LORD/GOD, my Christian brothers and sisters, Christianity, I want to fight--literally--and argue. By the time I've figured out that I've been duped by the Devil; it's too late.
Verses 3 and 4 are pretty serious, especially verse 4. Can you or I look across our congregations or fellowships and tell, like Jude says in verse 4, who is godless and changes the grace of God into a liscense for immorality, and denies Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord?
Was Jude talking about the Gnostics of his day? What kind of people would that be today? Does anyone have an example to share from their church?
Would today's example be more like certain radio or TV preachers, or is this dealing with what goes on inside a congregation?
Anonymous, when people are diss'ing and lying about Jesus, just remember that we don't fight against flesh (people) but against the darkness (satan/evil). We can't argue someone into the Truth but we can defend the Truth by KNOWING what the Bible says. Let them knock Christians, heck some of the people who call themselves Christians are as bad as they would judge them, maybe even worse. And for what its worth, they WANT you to get upset and angry, its fun for them to see the widdle Christian upset and angry and loose their cool, don't let them get to you, Christ will have the last laugh.
To anonymous: I often get defensive when people try to bad mouth Chrisitanity as well. Just remember to speak the truth in love. You should certainly stand up for what you believe in, but people will be more willing to see your side if you explain it to them in a loving way. Just a thought.
This is for Anonymous, With what Unicorn said, they are also so quick to call you out if you are wrong in something. leaver it in God's hands, it is His battle.
Kassi, I get defensive as well, it is hard.
Some people have little or no faith at all. They are missing out on what a wonderful God we serve. They keep God at a distance. That use to be me, and I am so glad God has truly changed my life. God is so GOOD.
Not only will they call you out if you're wrong but they don't even want the truth, their point is to ridicule Christians and the Bible. You can't argue that. So your response 'in love' like Kassi said is super important
Unicorn, please pray for me in that area.
I struggle right now in my life, responding in love, that is so hard for me, you are right though.
I really want to be a good example, and I know at times we will mess up. What happens then when others are looking and expecting for us to be perfect?
To Anon. & Kassi & Unicorn - All of you are right. It is so hard to combat people who want to argue when we try to witness. Sometimes when we witness, we try to say what God wants us to say, according to the Bible, and then turn it over to Him to do the rest. I have had situations where a person will many months later remind me of something I said about God and his love, as compared to the person thinking that God would not send anyone to hell.
Many times we plant a seed and a different Christian will be allowed to see the harvest. We struggle to follow God's lead in what he would have us say, lovingly, because we are still in 'human mode.' All of the 'critical' people will be looking for us to make mistakes, and we will. This helps us to stay more dependent on God instead of ourselves. One thing I have had to mention to one of my non-Christian friends is that he prefers to compare 'mistake-making Christians' to something he doesn't want to be. I tried to point out that people will always make mistakes; the comparison needs to be towards Jesus and his sin-free example.
Thank you so much Carol for your comment. That was so well said, and so encouraging to me. THANK YOU. Have a wonderful day!!
Hello, I have been listenning to your programs, and they are quite interesting.
Since the topic is to stay away from false preachers, who are the false ones?
How can they be idetified?
So many people use the bible, to create a church, so many churches, with different names, and even diferent rituals, so which is the false, which is the truly one chosen by god, since you mention in one of the programs that the church is the chosen method of god, to propagate his word.
Any answers would be appreciated.
Happy free thoughts...