Final Instructions and a Soaring Doxology

The letter of Judah. It's a short letter at the end of the New Testament written by a brother of Jesus, a man named Judah. It's an emergency letter warning his community about certain people who are causing serious problems. And what's so fascinating, he never highlights their teaching as such, like false teaching or false doctrine, bad theology as such. What he highlights is the way they see the world. Judah shows us the way they see the world by comparing them to stories, characters in the Hebrew Bible. They're like the wilderness generation. They're like the rebellious angels. They're like the men of Sodom and Gomorrah. They think like Cain. They're motivated like Balaam. And they rebel like Korah. Now Judah just assumes you understand these stories and how they're all connected. All of those are really about one thing, the divine justice. that holds humans accountable for destructive behavior. Judah references all these stories from the Hebrew Bible. He also quotes other Second Temple literature, but he ends with a quote from the apostles of Jesus, people who knew Jesus personally. And they say, and I'm paraphrasing here, watch out for people who are motivated by serving themselves rather than being motivated by the Spirit of God. The genuine message about Jesus is so surprising to basic human instinct and desire. And it's much easier to domesticate Jesus and create a version of Christianity that allows me to still satisfy most of my appetites. And Jesus and Paul and John and Judah are saying, listen, this is not a surprise. That people like this are in your community, you should know that Jesus warned us about this. There has been a lot of warning in this letter, but the letter ends with a call to action, A call to build themselves up because they are a holy building. This new temple theology was woven in to the Jesus movement from the beginning. It's not just a creative little metaphor. It's actually using a deep theology that comes from the Hebrew Bible about the place where heaven and earth meet. And yes, there are troublemakers in your midst. And yes, they're fooling a lot of people. but you can withstand by being merciful but also very careful. It's hard to discern the truth. And so be patient and show mercy, but be very careful. You don't want to somehow find yourself in a situation where you're trying to help. Now you're part of the problem. Today, Tim Mackey and I wrap up this study in the letter of Judah, a unique look into the earliest communities that followed Jesus. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. Hey, Tim. Hey, John Collins. We're going to try to finish the letter of Judah. Yeah, we are. I'm optimistic. All right. We've gone through a lot. I feel like we've gotten through the hardest things. When I read it, like the things that I'm just like, what? Yeah, what's happening here? Yes, I agree. I agree. The body of the letter in verses 5 and 19 is where the most challenging stuff for modern readers is. Yeah. Okay. Okay, so since this is the last episode, quick overview. I'm looking at a little chart I made to help myself think about the shape of the letter. Verses 1 and 2, Judah's lie. Hey, family, those loved by God, called by Jesus Messiah, mercy and peace and love overflow. Love you guys. Verse 3, man, I wanted to write a super cool biblical theology of the Tanakh and the theme of salvation, but I had to stop because there's a problem. Do you think you ever finished that? You think you wrote that? I have no idea. Wouldn't it be great to find that? It would be incredible. What would we do with it, though? Can't put it in the Bible. No, you would do what he did. Yeah. Which is just have an expanded library around the Bible. Yeah. And read that, because it's so valuable to have a wide library that helps you understand the Bible. There you go. Anyway, I had to write this letter to you, because there's a crisis going on. The once and for all handed down faith is on the line here. because of certain people, these people have snuck into our communities. And what's so fascinating, he never highlights their teaching as such, like false teaching or false doctrine, bad theology as such. What he highlights is the way they see the world, they have some fundamental views of reality that lead them to make moral choices. And those moral choices are going to lead to ruin, and they're going to lead you to ruin. In other words, he highlights their way of life. Yeah. And the way they see the world, we've had to infer. We have to infer it. By looking at what he's quoting and thinking about the problems that were happening in this time period. That's right. Reading the New Testament letters requires some form of what a New Testament scholar, John Barclay, called mirror reading. We're looking at this letter as in a mirror. and it reflects back to whatever is in the background about the situation that judah's writing into yeah we can't see it directly all we can see are the reflection of the crisis in the mirror and you have to kind of look at what he's saying and then infer what might have been the problem that he's talking about and this is a skill of reading the bible's ancient literature especially new testament letters what crisis or situation were they written to we don't we don't have independent knowledge of that yeah but we have this letter yeah so there are limits in what we can infer but we can infer a lot yeah that's what we've been trying to do he tells us that they've got a meeting with god's justice coming and actually that meeting with god's justice was written about long ago and now we begin to understand like oh that's why he's appealing to the stories of all these hebrew bible stories future like justice that god's going to bring we can know what that's going to be like by looking at the past and seeing how God's done in the past. How God has brought justice in the past. Primarily the flood, then he also goes to Sodom and Gomorrah, but also the wandering for 40 years and the Israelites dying in the wilderness, or the rebellion of Korah, or what happened to Balaam, or what happened to Cain. Yeah. All of those are really about one thing for him. the divine justice that holds humans accountable for destructive patterns of behavior. They've distorted God's generosity into a lack of self-control. And so living that way, they deny the Lord Jesus, their master, in the way that he called his followers to live. So that's what he said. These people, that's essentially what they're doing. And then he worked through two sets of biblical patterns. And you referenced most of them just now. Just right there. Yep, that's right. I think you just missed the Sons of Korah. Oh, the Sons of Korah. Yep, that's right. So let me give you three stories, and then he applies it to these people. Let me give you three more characters, apply it to these people. And then he moved into two prophecies, one ancient, one contemporary, that reaffirms that these are the kinds of people that were anticipated long ago. Okay, and the ancient prophecy was reading from Enoch. That was from the first literary unit of Enoch. Yep. So there's another way to see it. I'm zooming in now to just this little section, verses 14 and 19. So you have an ancient prophecy. Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied. And even that word, the pro, right there. So prophesied is a compound word in Greek. Oh. The phesied comes from feimi or feces in Greek, which means to utter. Okay. And then pro means before, to utter beforehand. To prophesy. And then he quotes from Enoch, and then he applied it to these people. And that's what we read last time. Now he's going to quote from what the apostles spoke beforehand. And they pro-spoke. So there's that pro, there's before. And then the word speak, pro-e-me-menon, so they spoke beforehand. Okay. So ancient speaking beforehand and a recent speaking beforehand. Two different words, but they mean similar things. Yep. Yeah, they're synonyms. Exactly right. So let's read what the apostles said recently, shall we? Verse 17. But you, loved ones, remember the words spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Messiah. So the first people called apostles are the 12 disciples. The disciples. And then apostles refers to their role. It just means people who are sent in the Greek word apostello. So before Jesus went to Jerusalem to get killed, he went around Galilee announcing the kingdom of God. And we're told one story in Matthew and Luke where he sends out the 12 ahead of him to go get people ready. He sends them out. Then he also sent out the 72 in Luke. Right. So the apostles is a way of talking about both the 12 and then about his whole discipleship community who was sent out to represent him to a larger group. Okay. And the apostles is a term that can sometimes mean the smaller group, sometimes mean the larger group. I think probably here he's thinking about the larger group. So not just the 12. Okay. Yeah. It's anyone who has a designation of I'm sent by Jesus or they need to be a part of Jesus's crew in some way when he was alive. It seems like the phrase apostles, if you track it in the book of Acts, it refers to, first of all, somebody who had an encounter with the risen Jesus. And in that first generation, it meant like you either saw Jesus before his execution or after his resurrection. and you witnessed him, you encountered him, and now you were so changed by that encounter, you were going and dedicated your life to sharing the news about him. But the apostles are known in the New Testament, both as the 12 and as a larger circle, of people who are preserving the true teaching about Jesus, the faithful representation of his story, of how he presented himself. Because already in the first generation, you're going to have questions about somebody goes and says, hey, I heard from Jesus. I saw him. Here's what he says. Let's live this way and let's stake our whole lives on it. That's a pretty big demand, challenge to make. How do you know if they're representing who Jesus really said he is? And so in the early generations, the circle of the apostles was really significant because they were sort of like the living witnesses to who Jesus really was. So he's saying, listen, they had a message to speak to the Jesus movement everywhere in all its forms. And what they said is this, verse 18. At the end of time, there are going to be mockers who are going to walk according to their irreverent, that's again our word, godless, anti-divine authority, walk according to their desires. It's a familiar theme by now. Then he applies it again. These people, he uses the phrase these people. Well, and where does this quote come from? Exactly. We don't know. yeah i'll finish reading it and then we'll get there these people oh i thought that was the end of the quote that is the end of the quote and verse 19 okay comes and follows he applies it remember because he had the enoch quote and then he applied it to these people okay now it's the quote from the apostles he applies it these people here's what they do here's how you know they live just driven by their desires not by representing jesus but by representing their desires. They generate division everywhere they go. They are, this is a hard word to translate, psikiki. They are bound. Psikiki. Down from their psuche or psiki. From their body, their embodiedness. Yes. Yeah. They're bound to what their physical senses and desires, the world as presented to them by their five senses and the desires generated. That's their universe. and they can't see anything above and beyond that. Your body drives your decisions. That's what he's describing. Okay. So notice they generate division. They are driven by wherever their body and appetite guides them. That's where they go. They don't have the spirit. Huh. You don't have the spirit. Yeah. Okay. Which on one level is not true. Because everyone is alive. If you're breathing, according to Genesis 1 and 2, you are borrowing God's spirit. Okay. So what they mean is they don't have the spirit that leads you to life eternal that has been made available to us through the risen Jesus, Messiah. Yeah. That's what he means. Right. Yeah. Because the spirit of Jesus is the spirit of God that allows you to transcend the limits and boundaries of the current out of Eden order. and reconnect you to the eternal life of the garden, so to speak. And they're not in touch with anything outside of their own physical bodies and appetites. So that's what that little triad means there. So, man, if you have somebody who's not connected to a spirit that transcends their bodily breath and nothing that transcends their bodily desires, they're just going to leave a wake of broken relationships wherever they go in division. and Jesus and the apostles tried to say, like, beware of people who live that way because they're going to do real damage to our communities and how we're trying to bear witness to a different way of living as a human. So that's the basic idea of this paragraph. What's he quoting from? Yeah, what's he quoting from? Isn't that interesting? Yeah. Like, where did he get this? What does he mean here? Was there a scroll of the apostles' sayings? Yeah, so let's think. So here I've just pulled together kind of like the top greatest hits list of moments where Jesus or other apostles said things like this. These will be familiar passages to you. In Matthew 24, the night before Jesus gets arrested, he's telling his disciples, listen, false messiahs and false prophets are going to arise after me. They might even do signs and wonders like I've been doing, but they are going to mislead you, even if it's possible, mislead God's chosen ones, that is the elect. So Jesus sees himself preparing the righteous remnant among Israel that's going to survive the flood of the Roman onslaught of Jerusalem. People are going to lead you into all kinds of ways and say, this is how God's rescuing the world now. I'm telling you in advance if it doesn't look, smell, or sound like me, Jesus says it's not me the apostle Paul when he was under arrest he was on a ship going to Rome stand on trial he stopped by the southern coast of Greece and a whole bunch of people came to him from Ephesus from the church he planted there and he gives the speech Acts chapter 20 it's very powerful and he says i know that after my departure savage wolves will come among you not sparing the flock oh jesus also used that image in the sermon mount in the sermon on the mount yeah yep that's right look out for the wolves they're like trees with no fruit that with no fruit doubly dead as jude yeah yeah yeah yeah a letter that paul wrote to timothy he said listen the spirit has been telling us that in the last days, in the times of the end, some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits, even theology and doctrines that do not come from the Spirit of God, come from an opposite spirit. And by means of liars and hypocrites that have seared their own conscience like with an iron. Isn't that a vivid image? Seared their own conscience like with an iron. Yeah. What does that mean? Well your conscience is the voice inside of you that tells you the difference between right and wrong Yeah Oh I think the idea is have you ever had a wound I thinking of like Oh cauterizing Yeah it like cauterizing skin and you can turn it into kind of a numb, almost like skin that has no nerves anymore. I see, right. It's not sensitive. Oh. Yeah, if you burnt your hand with an iron, it could make your skin become calloused and not sensitive. Yeah. Though I suppose sometimes people have scars and they're like extra sensitive. But he's talking about the opposite. All their nerves and sensitivity to the difference between good and bad, it's gone. And then they lead others down the same path. So you can kind of see the theme here. I have another passage from 2 Timothy, another passage from John. So this is a theme in the New Testament about warning. And it's true, man. The message, the genuine message about Jesus is so surprising to basic human instinct. Right? And desire. Loving your enemies. Giving away things that gives you security and comfort. Right? It's just, it's wildly counterintuitive to follow the way of Jesus. and it's much easier to domesticate Jesus and create a version of Christianity that allows me to still like satisfy most of my appetites and doesn't demand much of me at all and doesn't make much of a difference in the world as a result and Jesus and Paul and John and Judah are saying like listen this is not a surprise that people like this are in your community, you should know that Jesus warned us about this. That's what he's saying. Yeah. In essence. Okay. And likely there was some sort of quote. Did they write these things down? Yeah, it's interesting. Or is it just in the air? It's like, we know this saying from the apostles. Yeah. It seems like what he's saying is this is a theme in the teaching that comes to us from Jesus and the apostles. And here's the basic idea. Yeah. We're living at the end of days. Yeah. The resurrection of the Messiah has come. Final justice is, well, you don't know exactly when, but it will come. And there are people that are living as if it's not true, that God won't bring that kind of final justice. So the structure of this is really interesting. The body of the letter in verses 5 to 19, he had two sets of three narrative hyperlinked analogies, right? He had rebellion of the spies, the rebellion of the rebel sons of God, the watchers, and then rebellion of Sodom. And all those were about people who met judgment, divine justice. Then he applied it to these people. Then he did the three short analogies of Cain, Balaam, and Korah, because they have gone on the way of Cain. Then he gave the six short little word pictures. Then we have the two prophecies, long ancient prophecy of Enoch. Oh, Enoch just happened to live in the days of the Watchers, the rebel sons of God. Yeah, it's connected to that. Then a longer application to these people. Then he had a shorter prophecy of the apostles about people who go after their own desires. Oh, it's just like a lot like pain. So he's really wrapped the section tight together. Interesting, yeah. Now, also notice, the narrative analogies all come from the Hebrew Bible. Oh, the prophecies don't. Don't. They come from, as it were, extra Tanakh source, prophecy of Enoch, but still valuable. Even like coming to us as God's wisdom. And then he quotes from the apostles, which are also not yet writings that are considered part of a biblical collection. Yeah. They're not part of the Hebrew Bible, but they do have a divine wisdom and authority to bring us because they represent the Lord Jesus. There are some scholars who think, and I think there's something to it, that this is another little piece of evidence to say just because Judah and his community valued the Enoch scroll, even as offering divine wisdom, doesn't necessarily mean that he thought it was part of the Hebrew Bible. Okay, because it's separated here. He's separated out. Here's the stuff from the Hebrew Bible. This is what these people are like. Here's some stuff that's additional to the Hebrew Bible. Enoch, the apostles. It just so happens the apostles end up writing stuff that becomes part of the Christian Bible. Exactly. But Judah's writing when the documents of the New Testament are being written. Yeah, yeah. They don't exist as a collection. They don't exist as a collection. So he's writing before the collection of the New Testament. Okay. So remember he said, I need you guys to struggle for the faith. Wrestle for the faith. Remember that? Back up here. Let's go back up to verse 3 and 4. I was making every effort to write to you all this really cool book, but I had to write to you all to urge you to contend for the faith that was handed down once and for all. Because these people. Everything in verses 5 and 19 has been about these people. These people. So contend for the faith. It's literally the word for like grapple. Grapple for the faith. It's going to require hard work and wrestling. So we know why they need to wrestle. What does it look like? He hasn't said to do anything yet. Right. Finally, in verse 20, he's going to tell them to do something. Okay. And here's what he says. This is the only positive instruction in the whole letter. It's verses 20 to 23. But you, loved ones, there's two things. Building yourselves on your most holy faith and praying by means of the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God while you're waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Messiah resulting in life of the age that's kind of interesting set of sentences you are loved so keep yourself the loved one yeah you are loved so keep yourself in the love of God yeah there's a little riddle right there yeah you are those who are loved by God that's what the loved one So stay there. So stay there. Yeah. Then there's kind of three ways to do that. Three ways to do that. Building yourselves on your most holy faith and praying by means of the Spirit. And waiting. Motivated by that anticipation of the mercy that's coming our way. So real quick, building. Okay. This is architectural metaphor. You're making a structure on a foundation. You're creating. something. Yeah, you're building walls and a structure on a foundation. Build yourselves on. So he goes back to that phrase, the faith, which means both the ideas and the story that you see yourself living within, learning that, and then also responding to it with faithfulness and trust. Okay. And the word faith kind of is a way of getting at both of those. So maybe it's just easiest to see other apostles using the same metaphor. So in Ephesians 2, for example, Paul will talk to a bunch of non-Israelites who are followers of Jesus and say, Hey, listen, you're no longer strangers and aliens in the family of God. You're actually fellow citizens. And by aliens, it means immigrants, right? Yes, exactly right. You're not a refugee or an immigrant in the family of God. You are a fellow citizen with the holy ones, and you're a part of God's household, his oikos. You are being built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. That is Jesus and the apostles, and then Moses and the prophets. He's holding the old and new together. As one foundation. mm-hmm messiah himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole building is fitted together into a holy temple in whom you are being built together into a dwelling of god in the spirit it's the same set of ideas right yeah right here building referring to them they're the building the people are the temple yeah and then what he's what they're building is a temple and because a temple the purpose of a temple is the place you go to dwell with god to meet god yeah to live with God, to encounter God, that's what you guys are, that place. Exactly. Yeah. So it's not just a creative little metaphor. It's actually using a deep theology that comes from the Hebrew Bible about the place where heaven and earth meet. Hmm. Now, Judah here wouldn't necessarily have known Paul's metaphor of the body and the temple. No. What I'm saying is both Paul and Judah are pulling on a much deeper theme from the Hebrew Bible itself about the new temple. This new temple theology was woven in to the Jesus movement from the beginning, from Jesus himself. He was claiming to be the temple. Like when he went to Jerusalem and pulled that stunt there by driving out all the money changers. And remember John whispers in John chapter 2 on earth that the temple he's talking about is his body. So the temple was a symbol and a pointer to the union of heaven and earth through a portal. And Jesus called himself actually one greater than the temple. Where was that? That story is in Matthew's gospel in Matthew 15. Calls himself one greater than the temple, which is just stunning thing to say. So these two actually go together. You're building yourselves on your most holy faith. And what it's saying is y'all are the temple of God, and you're built on this foundational teaching and claim about who Jesus is as the new human, the portal of heaven and earth. So behaviors that go to building healthy community relationships and networks of support so that we can embody the way of Jesus together. It's really hard to follow the Sermon on the Mount by yourself, but get a crew of a few dozen around you and you commit to this. Make it the normal. Yeah. It becomes plausible in your little social world that you create. And then you really discover that giving is better than receiving. And that sexual integrity and faithfulness is better than meeting your sexual appetite every time your body tells you to meet that need or desire. and you start discovering what real life is together, these are all the things I think, what do you mean? That's the building. It's the building. And then as you are building yourselves, you are praying by means of the Spirit. Remember, he just said in the previous line, these people cause division. They're driven by their appetites. They don't have the Spirit. And now here we get the flip of that. So the Spirit is about recognizing that the very presence, the glory that was in the temple is in among you all. So he joins those together, building and praying. And as you build and pray, that's connected to keeping yourselves in the love of God while you wait for the day of the Lord. He calls it the mercy of the Lord. Remember, I've asked this question kind of before, like, is the day of the Lord in the Old Testament prophets good news or bad news? And it's kind of like, wow, what kind of world are you building? What kind of life are you building? Depends on what you're holding on to and what you've built, yeah. Yeah. If most of your life needs to get dismantled because of how you've been building it, it's going to be a tough day. But if you've been at least trying to build a life trajectory along the way of Jesus, then a lot of that stuff's going to shine on the day of the Lord. I guess in either way, it's a mercy. Totally. Actually, I think that's true. Yeah. But typically it's justice when it's assigned to dismantling and it's mercy when it's assigned to rebirthing and honoring. So anyway, that's a cool little lines. You loved ones, building yourself on the most holy faith, praying by means of the spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God while waiting for the mercy of Messiah resulting in life of the age. Yeah. It's rad. It's got a cadence to it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. He's getting his preaching hat on. Do you think that then maybe existed as some sort of benediction or prayer or liturgy? Because it does have that kind of sense to it. These lines here? Yeah. Yeah. Again, verse five, I want to remind you all of stuff you all already know. Yeah. So it seems like he's pulling on phrases that already have familiar ideas underneath them. He then moves on to something a little more specific. It's interesting, verses 22 and 23. To those who are wavering, show mercy. And others you should rescue, snatching them from the fire. And to others, show mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh. Okay. We're back to like code speak again. What? Okay. Okay. This is a fascinating little rabbit hole. Maybe I'll just flag. I kind of knew this. I remember this from maybe my survey class on these letters from Bible college. But in diving into this again, I realized how deep the rabbit hole is here. The letter of Jude verses 22 and 23 has probably what is one of the most complicated textual manuscript problems in the entire New Testament. Really? Yes. Whoa, I didn't know that. It is so fascinating. So what I mean by that is going back to our earliest text witnesses for Jude. Some of them come from second century, like fragments. And then I'll ride on through into the medieval period. There is such a huge diversity of variant readings of these verses that is not typical. They're wildly different from each other in a way that's more extreme than most. Am I going to find pretty different translations then? What this means is you're going to find different translations. And I first came across this randomly. The first kind of like cross-cultural Bible teaching experience I ever did back just a couple decades ago, I went to Ukraine. One of my seminary professors who asked me to co-teach a class with him. Okay. Like late 90s then? Ukrainian. I was 90. No, Jessica and I were first married. So it was actually the fall of 2001. Okay. somehow at some point these verses came up okay in the session i was teaching oh wow so they were reading to me in english on the spot translating what their ukrainian bible said and i was like what what does that say okay it was wild and that's how i learned about this first all right on the ground yeah on the ground on the ground okay the difference is really in verse 23 So verse 23, here's NIV. Save others by snatching them from the fire. To others show mercy mixed with fear, hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh. Okay, that's NIV. Similar to actually what I have in my translation. King James. Actually, most of the modern translations that I have here all go that same route. Essentially have it as a three-part saying. There are many manuscripts, and importantly, the oldest manuscripts of Jude have it as a two-line saying, not a three-part saying. So they're just missing first, second part, first, second part? They're missing a line. So here's a 5th century manuscript, Codex Ephraim. Some who are wavering rebuke, and others rescue from the fire, snatching them in fear. So it's even like more terse? It two lines instead of three and instead of show mercy on those who are wavering it rebuke those who are wavering Okay And actually this is how this came up in that Ukrainian classroom Because they had rebuke. They had those who are doubting rebuke. Oh. And maybe that was the theme. Something about doubt and faith came up. And I was talking about the importance of doubt. Oh. Yeah, this was it. And then a couple of pastors said, like, wait, what? You like try to like honor people or honor people's doubts when they have doubts. And I was like, yeah, man, you got to help people because their questions are important. And then one of them said, well, what about Jude? Verse 22, rebuke those who are doubting. And I was like, what? And I just had my Greek Bible in front of me. And I was like, that's not what it says at all. And then we had this whole thing where I realized that the Ukrainian translation was based on Greek manuscripts that were different than anyway. Super interesting. It's possible that the two-line poem that actually said rebuke those who doubt got turned into a three-line poem that says show mercy on those who doubt? I think it's most likely, and if you look in most commentaries, the word rebuke and the word show mercy are just a couple letters different in Greek. It's more likely that show mercy got like mangled in a manuscript transmission into rebuke. because the word mercy is a word to watch in this whole letter. It's repeated. It's one of the most repeated words. And he just said, we're waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Messiah. He's going to show mercy on us. So, man, those who are wavering or doubting, show mercy. So maybe I'll just say, this version I have in front of you, verses 20 to 1 to 22, is a very plausible, I think even probable reading, but I can't guarantee that this is exactly what Judah wrote. some ukrainian pastors differ yeah or the translators who made that translation chose the greek text yeah base yeah yeah and but it's yeah it's complicated okay so what i think judah's going for here is verses 22 and 23 are become very practical yeah right now on the ground in our community we've got people in a bunch of different positions yeah situations in light of the presence of these people in our community. We have some people who are wavering. They don't know who's telling the truth. I've got, these people are so nice. They've come, they flat, they are like. Yeah, they've got some charisma. They seem really nice. They're easy to get along with. They invite me to their parties. Right, they got a good party. Yeah, but you're telling me that actually this other part of our church community is actually what really represents the way of Jesus. us how am i supposed to know okay so have mercy on them yeah show mercy like that's hard it's a hard place to be hard to discern the truth okay and so be patient and show mercy mercy this is uh it's exactly from the beatitudes in the sermon on the mount and remind me of the word underneath that it's about going above and beyond obligation or duty okay you know there's a general duty is Is this the word that translates hesed or loyolo? Yes. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Yeah. Show an overabundant, kind of like the way a parent will show just a little more leniency towards their own kid for their misbehavior. Okay. Because they're their kid. Got it. This is your sibling in the Messiah. Yeah. So they may be making a poor decision about who to hang out with now, but don't lay into them. Be gentle. Be kind about it. That's step one. Now, others, there are some others where maybe you need to do an intervention. They actually have become so clouded in their thinking. They think that following Jesus doesn't have anything to do with how you spend your money. And they've been hanging out with these people now, the ones who snuck in. And I can see patterns of greed and whatever. I don't know. Think of the stories. that you could fill in. And they're like, some people, you just need to get in there and rescue them. Like intervene. And he calls it snatching them from the fire. So meeting the divine fire of justice that Paul calls like the day of, like in 1 Corinthians 3, the day of the Lord is like fire that's going to burn away all of the wood, hay, and straw. And it won't be pleasant if you're mostly invested in your life and wood, hay, and straw. So intervene. Some show mercy. Some show mercy. They're kind of wavering back and forth. Be patient. Be patient. Some are like, they stopped wavering. They're in it. Yeah. Like rescue mission. Rescue mission. Yep. Okay. Yep. And others show mercy, but be very careful. Hmm. Hmm. And then he uses this, what is to us an odd figure of speech, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh. Okay. So I think- But we talked about this phrase. Pollution of the flesh refers to sex. Yeah. Yeah. Promiscuous sex. So I think, again, because he said these people, their sexual ethic is basically guided by their appetites. Mm-hmm. And for somebody who's fallen into that pattern with them, show mercy on them, like get involved, help point them to the right direction, but be very careful. Essentially what he's saying is be really careful. Yeah. Hating even the garment. Okay. So these phrases, snatching from the fire, hating the garment, these, of course, are hyperlinks. Oh, okay. Yeah, which kind of helps. It's really interesting. So both of these lines right here come from a passage in Zechariah 3. We already looked at Zechariah 3 a number of episodes ago, but I think let's upload it again because these details are super important for what Jude is doing right here. Okay. Here's the scene. Zechariah the prophet he's living in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah after the exile they've rebuilt the temple they've reinstated the priesthood and he has this vision this dream that shows him the high priest of Israel standing right in front of the messenger of Yahweh but then the Satan is right there standing beside him to accuse him at his right hand okay so you got the scene where you have god's chosen one the representative right who's supposed to represent god to israel and israel to god and you've got a messenger god on one side and you've got the evil one and the evil ones trying to accuse the high priest before god and yahweh said to the accuser may Yahweh rebuke you oh satan so Yahweh responds to the accuser by saying may Yahweh rebuke you yeah in the third person that's right yeah so likely what that means is do you remember the messenger of Yahweh and Yahweh are like yeah this ambiguity two sides of the same coin yeah that's right so I think when it says Yahweh said to the accuser what we're meant to see is the angel of Yahweh representing Yahweh okay and so he says may Yahweh rebuke you this is the section quoted by Judah mm-hmm but connected with the death and the burial of Moses yeah that we read earlier earlier so Michael the angel exactly yeah quotes this right so he already has this passage on the brain okay this you Joshua Joshua he's a smoldering stick that has been snatched out of the fire hmm so this is a poetic way of describing he's the representative of the Israelites who just got pulled out of Babylon okay which is the thought was the fire of God's justice yeah so you've got the Israel's high priest that's just been snatched out of Babylon along with his people and he was standing there in my dream clothed with filthy polluted garments standing there before God okay it's the idea of Israel just went through exile because of centuries of covenant violation idolatry injustice neglect of the poor yeah they've been rescued from that they've come back snatched out of the fire and now they're going to rebuild the temple and essentially this is like the satan standing before them or the snake coming and saying you have no right to be god's represent you have no right to be god's people your garments are filthy the accuser yeah and so then this goes on about removing the garments yes got what god's response is well then let's change this guy's clothes so that he can stand before me in fact clothe him with festival robes like get this guy ready for Passover get this guy ready for the real party it's really cool and so he gets all new clothing and then the pure turban on his head and the turban you know of the high priest had the phrase on it holy and set apart for Yahweh so this is the network of texts Jude's relying on here so So rescue others, snatching them out of fire, just like God rescued our ancestors out of exile. Do that for others. Save them from a life of exile. That's right. Yes. And for people who are making choices, especially with regard to sex that are going down that road, just be very, very careful. Because it's very polluting. Yeah. Yeah. You don't want to somehow find yourself in a situation where your sexual desires overtake you and you were trying to help. Now you're part of the problem. Okay. And these are all referring to not these people. No, he's referring to just the community that people in our community figure out what to do in light of these people. Yep, you got it. Okay. So these are the only positive, practical instructions that he gives. And they're both general, but they're also very practical and make sense in light of the situation that he's been describing. And is that the end of the letter? There's a little doxology. Okay. so to god be that's the basic form it's he's made it much longer than that but that's the basic form of of this doxology to god be glory majestic greatness strength and authority that's the basic thing that he's saying but he's filled out he's made it longer yeah in all these really cool ways so but that phrase right there the doxology to god be ah to god be praised i don't know who first showed me monty python's the holy grail oh have you seen it it's been a long time yeah it holds so funny man it holds up anyway there's a moment when uh the actor or he says may god be praised um i watched it kind of scanning through certain parts with my kids and we are just on the floor laughing the whole time and that line now we say all the time to each other may god be praised okay but it's a common doxology to god to god be to god be to god be uh the glory of majesty okay so judah he is taking what you know we don't know are we a decade are we two three into the jesus movement post-resurrection we don't know but you know there's classic roman greek style conclusions to how you finish writing a letter. And the early Christian authors took that tradition from Greek and Roman letter writing and provided these uniquely Christian tweaks on them. And so Jude is giving his own. Well, remind me, what would be a common way to end a New Testament letter? Yeah, so here. I've got a whole bunch right here. Yeah, so the end of Philippians. Now to our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen. Ooh, there's a little one in Paul's. It's actually not a conclusion, but it is a doxology near the beginning of Paul's letter to Timothy. Now, to the king, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor, glory, forever and ever. Amen. The end of Romans. Now, and you'll see some similarities. Now, to him who is able to establish you, according to my gospel, to the only wise God through Jesus Messiah, be glory forever. Amen. It's got some similarities to Jews. To the God who is able, that's what, so Judah says, to the one who is able to protect you from stumbling and to make you stand blameless, to God our rescuer through Jesus, be glory. It's very similar. So notice what we're doing is we're filling out the identity of God and with different activities, things that God has done. And also we're joining together the uniquely Christian claim that to know God's identity, you also need to know Jesus' identity. To know Jesus is to know God, and to know God is to know Jesus. Judah doesn't mark God as Father at the end here. He did at the beginning. Beginning, yeah, because those who are beloved in God the Father. But here it's just God and Jesus. I think meaning God the Father and Jesus our Lord. So the point is that these doxologies allowed early Christian authors to add certain descriptions of God that made it relevant to the context of what they're writing. So it's interesting that Judah highlights God's ability to keep you from stumbling. thinking of the context of this emergency letter he wrote which is about the potential of these house church communities to have people who stumble and fall down do you use the word stumble no i was gonna say that's not it's not a great how i would say it okay tripping get tripped up tripped you're walking and you you your foot hits something and you fall down what would you call that yeah tripping tripping to the one who can protect you from falling down hmm falling down would be a decent way to do it tripping can make you feel like oh i tripped like like an accident yeah where oh stumbling's not accidental uh just the word they use is patio is like you you fall down it's just falling down but because you tripped but because you tripped falling down because you tripped. But you never mean to do that. That's exactly right. Okay. Yeah. You're not trying to, but something can happen out of your control and you end up on the ground. Okay. What would you say? I mean, I was walking, I tripped and I fell down. I see. That's really what we're talking about. Falling down. Yeah. It protects you from falling down. Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah. That makes sense. You don't quite get the tripping idea in falling down because you can fall down for any number of reasons. Yeah. Not necessarily tripping. Right. But you're walking on a path. Yeah. your foot hit something, you didn't plan for it to be there, and now all of a sudden you're on the ground and it hurts. We do talk about face planting. It's like a real bad trip. To the one, yeah. So notice, actually, the opposite is standing up. The one who can protect you from falling down. Okay, that makes sense. And to the one who's able to make you stand up. Okay. So these churches are in danger of falling down because of these people in their midst. The ship can go down. Yeah, that's right. But God can both protect you and God can give you strength and ability to withstand this as a community and come out the other side. And so you can stand before God blameless in the presence of his glory. Notice standing before God in the presence of his glory. This is the language of the priests or the sacrifices, the animals. They're supposed to be blameless. That's right. So we're taking language used of what the priests would do when they would bring the gifts and offerings to God. And you can stand before God without any doubt or any insecurity about your relationship before God. In fact, you can stand blameless with joy. You're just stoked. All of a sudden the divine glory is not a threat anymore It just cause for celebration It a cool idea Yeah Being able to stand to me doesn feel that exciting I stand every day. Oh, sure. You know, like, and if I fall down, okay, I might bruise my knee, but I could stand right back up. For some reason, it doesn't evoke a lot of like, oh, yes, okay, I'm not going to fall. I guess when you get older, falling does suck more. Yeah. But. Yeah. But then when you bring in these pictures of standing in the glory, like a priest, that evokes a lot more emotion. Yeah. And then the joyfulness of that, that's a cool kind of standing. Yeah. Because often when people experience God's powerful glory in the Bible, they freak out. They think they might die. Right. And this is the opposite of that. Okay. So in the middle of this crisis that could really damage a lot of people, he's ending on a note of confidence, not in their ability, but in God's ability. Both protect them and to give them the strength, the courage, resilience to stand through this challenge and trust that they're going to stand blameless in the presence of his glory. Yeah. And he kind of sneaks in their identity there then as priests. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Remember, he just said, build yourselves up on the foundation of the most holy faith. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's temple language, too. So they are the temple that's hosting God's presence, and they are the priests experiencing God's presence in the temple that they are. That's cool. So, to, now that he's described God in that way, relevant to the crisis that the letter, you know, is all about, and he says, to the only God, you see the Shema peeking out there? so hero is real the lord our god is the one the only one yeah the only one the only god through jesus messiah our lord so who is the the one god the father and the son to that god our rescuer god our rescuer yeah he's rescued us through and that's the word we use for salvation yes that it is the it is the word salvation savior okay god our savior okay would be a standard English translation. That's probably what I'll find. Okay. Yep. Four things. Glory, that is honor, majestic greatness, like royal awesomeness, strength. Wait, hold on. And authority. Majestic greatness, royal awesomeness. What? Yeah. I mean, it is the word greatness, but we're talking about the greatness of like people of high status. This is royal language. This is what people would say when they entered into the court of the Roman emperor. Stuff like this. Oh, wise emperor, all beneficent one to you, be honor and greatness and strength and authority. That's kind of the language that this belongs to. The world that this language belongs to. Okay. And how, for how long should God be given glory, greatness, strength, and authority? What do you mean given? We can't give God anything. No, to God be. Okay, to God be. To God be glory. So we're just kind of, what are we doing there? We're just recognizing? Yeah, God is worthy of the greatest honor and adoration and praise. Yeah, we're just squarely in the language of Christian worship, because God is just the infinite source of goodness and life, power. And that is the God that's chosen to share himself, his very self with us through Jesus Messiah. So it's just reveling in the beauty of God. Yeah. But this is coming to us from a world, an honor-shame culture, where verbal expression to increase the honor and status of another is part of how you express loyalty and devotion and love. Yeah, but I can imagine it being done out of just obligation and fear and duty. Sure. Right? Sure. Walking into a king's or emperor's palace and be like, oh, great one and powerful one. And just feeling like I don't cross this person. I'm sure that happens. That probably happens in churches all over the world still today. Right? Yeah. Yeah. What's the attitude here, do you think, for Jude? I think it's 100% genuine. Yeah. The guy he grew up with, he confesses as the divine lord of the world. who out of love was sent by the Father to lay down his life for the sins of the world and then rose victorious over death and sin and the grave and loves us and is sharing his very life being with us. Yeah, like you come to terms with that in any little way. And yeah, it seems like there would be this moment of delight and then it's expressed out of that delight. Yeah, verbally expressing someone's greatness and power in a form of lavish public praise. This is not native to me as an Upper West Coast American of the 21st century. I don't relate to anybody like this. Right. And the people I respect, if I did that to them, they'd be like, dude, chill out. Okay, like we're just hanging out. Okay, but we do have these moments. Even if we don't live in a culture or subculture that expresses honor to each other, we do know there are moments to give public honor to someone when they've done something really cool. And you've been in those situations where someone's being honored publicly in a really beautiful way. And it's awesome. It's awesome. So imagine you lived in a culture where you experience words like this in that way. Yeah, okay. you're just like yeah man god is so generous and jesus is so beautiful and cool and good and then so to the to him be glory and majestic greatness and strength and authority yes yeah yeah it's interesting that i have to live into a different psyche a little bit for that to feel authentic yeah um probably says more about me i mean but everything we say is in a way about us It's a reflection of who we are in our culture, and that's okay. For how long is God worthy of all of this greatness and glory? Well, before every age, right now, and for all the ages. That is eternity. Everywhere, anytime. Tell me about ages real quick. Okay, this is our word, eon. We get eon from it into English. This is, let's see, we did a video on this. Eternal life. Eternal life, yeah. Eternal life video. Yeah. So this is a Greek word, and then in Jewish Greek, it translates the Hebrew word olam. It refers to a period of time that can be in the past, present, or future. It's a period of time, and then usually it's a period of time defined by some particular attribute. The age of childhood. Exactly, yes. Yeah, the age of a certain kingdom or a king. Okay. And you can have ages, therefore, in the past or ages in the future. So before every age means however many periods of time you want to carve up time into all the way back. God is before that. And even before that, he was worthy of this when there were no humans around to say it. Before we carved up any time at all. Yeah. Even now and for any future carving up of time. Yeah, God is worthy of honor, greatness, strength, and authority. It's never not been that. Right now, in the present, it's definitely worthy of that. And for all the ages, plural, Ionian. However many ages there are going to be? We mentioned earlier, this first generation of Jesus followers thought, this is the last age. This is it. Like, in fact, any minute now, like the end of history, as we know it is happening. Jesus is coming back. And by end of history, the fulfillment of history. Sure. Yeah. Sorry. That's what the word end means. But sometimes that phrase end of history can make us think a whole bunch of things. Yes. Yeah. Well, it's a us-centered view of time. Our age, the most important time. So whenever our time ends, well, that's just the end. Right? Yeah. The biblical authors think differently about time. It's the end meaning fulfillment of history. No, that's good. That's probably not even what I meant. It's the fulfillment. So is it interesting here that there's still a sense of there might be ages? Oh, well, the new creation is called the age to come. That's usually what age means in the singular. And then I think this plural then is a way of imagining that. The age to come. The age to come and however many, whatever God has in store. It might be ages that we hadn't even imagined. Okay. But however many there are to come and before every one that every was. So he's just pushing it out, extending as far as you can go past and future. Yeah. Because what's the phrase that's translated eternal life? Age-ish life. Age-ish life. It's the word age as an adjective. Yeah. So I think in English, the most helpful way is life of the age. Life of the age. Technically, when you see eternal life in our English translations, it's life of the age. In most cases, eternal is probably not the most helpful translation of this word, aeon. And so life of the age, the heavens and earth uniting in a culminating fulfilled way. That's life of the age. Yep. So here, for all the ages, you're saying the life of the age and whatever beyond that. It's wild to think about. It is. Yeah. This is the equivalent of the final pages of the last battle in Narnia. Yeah. Where it's like... Further up and further in. Further up and further in. And this is actually not the last chapter of the story. It's rather just the first chapter is just now beginning. There's this rad little meditation on how the real story of Aslan and his people is finally now just beginning. It's a story in which each chapter is better than the rest. That's how Lewis ends it. It's like however many chapters there are to come now, how can we even know? Yeah. It's a rad conception of time. It is. It's a cool way to end something. is just to remind yourself like time is big. Yeah. Yes. Right? We get so like trapped in our little moment in time. Time is so big. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Man, I think I can't tell if it's middle age and like. I know. Or if it's. I think about death so much more than I ever have. Yeah. Me too. Yeah. Me too. And then the smallness and the shortness of a human life. Yeah. And how much bigger time span just the history of the human family, of the universe, much less the categories of existence that break time and space that are before and after us. We're really vapor. It's vapor, man. We're vapor. Yeah. Hevel, I guess if you bring it back to the theme of this letter, we have this moment. like we have this community we get to be followers of jesus we get to be the temple we get to be the priests like don't let this opportunity go by don't let some people these people come in and like win you over in a way that's just actually going to sink the ship yeah and when you get myopic and you just think about like well my day and my week and what do i want right now and what's my appetite height right now, it's easier to kind of fall into that versus like opening the aperture to all the ages and thinking about the majesty of God. And you just kind of end in that frame and you're like, yeah, what am I doing? Yeah, that's right. And the focus of Judah's critique wasn't primarily their teaching or their theology. It was the life choices they were making with regards to money and social influence, power, and sex. And somehow their choices in those areas, informed by some worldview or story around it, probably is one way of describing that's the main idea of the letter. And then the way that he communicates that to Jewish Messianic house churches is so Bible, Tanakh, hyperlink, design pattern nerdiness. It's the coolest. It's so cool. Yeah. Yeah. It's a great cross-cultural learning opportunity for many of us modern Westernized Christians. Because I just love how it makes you work for it. And then when you work for it, it just comes to life more in my mind, my imagination. And that's powerful. Yeah, this letter stands there as a testament to the thought and culture and passion of the earliest Jewish messianic house churches in Jerusalem up in Galilee connected to the relatives of Jesus. It's such a precious little window. And I'm just so, I love this letter. It's one of my favorite pages in the whole Bible, the letter of Judah. So cheers. Thanks for going through that with me. Thank you, Tim. Yeah. Thanks for listening to this episode of Bible Project Podcast. That's it for the letter of Jude. Thanks for hanging with us in this really cool and unique passage in the New Testament. Bible Project is a crowdfunded nonprofit, and we exist to help people experience the Bible as a unified story that leads to Jesus. Everything that we create is free because of the generous support of thousands of people just like you. Thank you so much for being a part of this with us. discipling fourth and fifth graders and leaders of fourth and fifth grade. My favorite thing about the Bible Project is the illustrations. Wow. Just seeing all the images on screen and seeing how everything is made and seeing the word that way changed my life and it changed my family's life. 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