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. (Jude 1.4) We are headed back to the New Testament for now. We will get to the book of Acts – one of my favorite books of the Bible! – but before we get there, we are headed to the next-to-last book in the Bible: Jude. We will be reading Jude 1. Actually Jude only has one chapter, so we will be reading the entire book of Jude! If you have a study Bible, read the introductory material to the book of Jude. The following devotion was written by my daughter, Jenny Powell. Thanks, Jenny! In this letter written by Jesus’ half-brother Jude, he warns Christians from being drawn away from the pure gospel message by teachers of false doctrine. If you have a study Bible, it will most likely tell you this short letter was written around 65 A.D., just 30 years after Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension. While reading this letter, I was struck by its relevancy. Though it was written almost 2000 years ago, there are messages here that I think are needed more than ever in the Church today. The modern-day church is facing a struggle to remain separate from the world, yet “relevant” and accepting to those it seeks to draw into its doors. One result of this struggle has been the start of the so-called emergent church movement. This movement has, in the last decade or so, created congregations in which truth and certainty is rejected for an over-abundance of misapplied grace. At a very high-level, some of the leaders of this movement have: • Admitted to having mixed feelings about the Bible, not wanting to use traditional terms such as authority, infallibility, absolute, etc. • Claimed that God and His Word are too mysterious to understand • Rejected the idea of original sin, saying Jesus believed in “original goodness” • Claimed that Christianity isn’t about dos and don’ts… it’s about relationship. I love one response to this way of thinking, written in a book entitled “Why We’re Not Emergent”, by DeYoung and Kluck: “In the end, it all comes back to God. We become what we worship. If God is relational, inviting, and mysterious overwhelmingly more than He is omnipotent, just, and knowable, then the gospel becomes a message overwhelmingly about community, inclusion, and journey. But if God is overwhelmingly holy, righteous, and graciously sovereign, then the gospel becomes a message about sin, justification, and undeserved mercy.” Jude warns about false teachers, calling them “clouds without rain” and “trees without fruit and uprooted”. Where are the roots of these false teachers? They are certainly not grounded in the firm and unchanging foundation of the Word. In verse 14, Jude tells of Enoch’s prophesy, saying that the Lord is coming to judge everyone, and to “convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way, and of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against them.” One word keeps popping up here: Jude is reminding the church that the Lord will judge the ungodly. Maybe being godly sounds unattainable to the world. Does this mean we should shepherd them into the church and maintain an attitude of tolerance and acceptance towards ungodly behavior? Certainly not! As the body of Christ, we show them the truth of God’s holiness contrasted against our sinfulness. But let us not stop there in hopelessness! We should then joyfully proclaim the Good News - there is hope for the ungodly, and it is not an unattainable mystery… it is in one man named Jesus! Jenny
Posted on: Fri, 19 Sep 2014 15:12:05 +0000