JUDE 1 — CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH, JUDGMENT ON THE GODLESS, AND KEPT BY GOD

Jude is a short, intense letter that sounds an alarm. Its author calls himself Jude (the Greek form of Judah) and identifies himself as a servant of Jesus Christ and a brother of James. The James in question is almost certainly James the leader of the Jerusalem church, and so Jude is one of the brothers of Jesus named in Matthew 13:55 and Mark 6:3. Like James, he did not believe in Jesus during His ministry (John 7:5), but became a believer after the resurrection (Acts 1:14; 1 Corinthians 9:5). The fact that he does not claim to be the Lord's brother but a servant of Jesus Christ reflects humility, in the same way as James. The letter was probably written in the 60s to 80s AD, and its readers were Christians, probably Jewish believers, who were facing a threat from within. The threat is a group of false teachers who have infiltrated the church. Their errors were both moral and doctrinal: they used the doctrine of grace as an excuse for sexual immorality and rebellion against authority, they denied the lordship of Christ, and they were motivated by greed and self-promotion. Jude responds with a sustained warning that draws on examples from the Old Testament and Jewish tradition. Unlike other books, it makes use of two Jewish writings that were not part of the canon, the Assumption of Moses (or a similar tradition) and 1 Enoch. The letter closely parallels 2 Peter 2, and most scholars hold that Peter drew on Jude, though some argue the reverse. It ends with one of the most beloved doxologies in the New Testament. The message is simple: defend the faith, remember the examples of judgment, build yourselves up in the Spirit, keep yourselves in God's love, and rely on the God who keeps you.

The author of Jude is a brother of Jesus, and his presence in the New Testament is part of a striking historical pattern. The Gospels record that Jesus' brothers did not believe in Him during His ministry (John 7:5), and yet after the resurrection, James and Jude became leaders in the early church. This change is best explained by an encounter with the risen Jesus, as Paul reports for James (1 Corinthians 15:7). The tradition recorded by Hegesippus and preserved by Eusebius adds that grandsons of Jude were brought before the emperor Domitian as descendants of David and were released when they were found to be simple farmers with calloused hands, which, if accurate, shows that the family of Jesus remained prominent in the early church. The letter also illustrates the way that the early church used its Jewish background. The citation of 1 Enoch is significant, since fragments of 1 Enoch in Aramaic were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran, showing that the book was widely read in Jewish circles in the period. Jude assumes that his readers know these traditions, which fits the Jewish-Christian audience. The letter's relationship to 2 Peter 2 shows that the early church had a shared body of teaching against false teachers, and the existence of two letters with parallel material indicates the seriousness and persistence of the threat. Jude's early reception is supported by external evidence: it is listed in the Muratorian Fragment (late second century), quoted by Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria, and included in the third-century papyrus P72 along with 1 and 2 Peter. Some in the early church hesitated to accept it because of its use of non-canonical writings, as Jerome records, but it was recognized as canonical by the fourth century. The letter's anticipation of scoffers, and its insistence on a faith delivered once for all, is also relevant to the historical emergence of Gnostic movements, which claimed new revelations and denied the lordship of Christ in the second century.