Jude: A Brief Introduction

The Epistle of Jude is a small letter, only twenty-five verses. However, what we find there is an enormous antidote to the easy-believism of our day. A few features that do this include the opening call to contend for the faith (v. 3), yes, even against heretics in the church (v. 4), the warning that God has always purged evildoers from His presence (vv. 5-7), the unflattering profile of the trouble-makers by analogy to Old Testament examples (vv. 8-16), and then finally the call to perseverance that extends from that ancient church to all Christians through the ages. 

Authorship, Audience, and Occasion

Jude puts himself forward as the author in verse 1. On this there is no confusion. The great mystery is how “brother of James” becomes the link to Jude being one of the brothers of our Lord, and, if so, then why he precedes this with the other descriptive, “a servant of Jesus Christ.” Of those commentators who believe that Jude was indeed brother to Jesus, the most common explanation is to say that this was done out of humility. More than that, there was the idea that to be a servant of Christ was actually a higher honor than even to be related by blood, as point that both Matthew Henry and Thomas Manton pick up on. Now as to the link itself, it should be pointed out that “Jude” was a later rendering of Judas. 

Although it is a minor point in the grand scheme of things, this is crucial to remember when modern critics of all things good and decent claim that “Jude” was an early Christian contribution to anti-semitism. The betrayer of Christ came to embody the Jewish people—convenient, since Jude is the German word for “Jew.” The old footage of the plural Juden in or around the star of David on the shop windows of Germany may even come to mind.

The problem is twofold. First, that is nothing more than a modern rendering in one European language; second, why would the church have bothered to receive as canonical someone with the same name as Judas Iscariot if it was meant to carry that weight? The simplest answer is that modern critics once again have too much time on their hands. 

Getting back to sober Bible reading, the Puritan Manton comments,

“for Jude was his brother, as Mat. xiii. 55, ‘Is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas?’ Now this clause is added, partly to distinguish him from the other Judas, called Iscariot, who betrayed our Lord.”1

Of course one must also remember that there were multiple men in the inner circle named James, two of utmost importance, since one was John’s brother and then the other that was mentioned in that Matthew 13 passage. The mention in Jude 1, Henry tells us, is “of him whom the ancients style the first bishop of Jerusalem, of whose character and martyrdom Josephus makes mention.”2

Parallels to 2 Peter

There are seven cases of parallel texts between Jude and 2 Peter. We can guess what skeptical academics do with this. They do roughly the same as they do with Paul’s letters of Ephesians and Colossians. One difference, however, is that these are shorter letters and so what is the same does not get as much relief from other parts of the letters that are different. Before showing what is distinct about Jude’s message, let’s take a look at those seven instances. Compare,

(1) Jude 4 to 2 Peter 2:1-3

(2) Jude 6 to 2 Peter 2:4

(3) Jude 7 to 2 Peter 2:6

(4) Jude 8 to 2 Peter 2:10

(5) Jude 9 to 2 Peter 2:11

(6) Jude 12 to 2 Peter 2:17

(7) Jude 18 to 2 Peter 3:3

The exact reasons that this bothers Christians and skeptics alike is almost as interesting as the nature of the parallels themselves—almost. At the end of the day, if we have skipped the question of the purpose of such parallels, then we sort of lose the right to see “patterns” that bother us. We would have shown little interest in what those are actually patterns of.

Consider that every community, tradition, or school of thought has a set of common terms and phrases. Such words are especially standardized at crucial moments of speech when time is of the essence and clarity is to be prized over originality.

To use the language of contemporary public discourse, we might call these “sanctified talking points.” If the Bible contains many literary genres (history, law, poetry, prophecy, narrative, epistle), and even many sub-genres within those (genealogies, apocalyptic, parable, king lists, Roman house codes, quotation of pagan sources), then it is not clear to me why the Holy Spirit could not also intend to use something of the “talking point.”

This may lead to a firm conclusion that Jude and 2 Peter were written at around the same time and from within the same atmosphere.

Now what was the basic theme of Jude that pointed these common ways of speaking in a way that was distinct from Peter? While Peter was pressing the showdown with false teachers in light of the second coming of Christ, Jude makes plain his larger concern in verse 4, with some hints in later verses. We might call it libertinism. It may be a bit much to call it a fully developed antinomianism (against law) since the letter is short and we have less to go on. But at any rate, the gospel was being dragged in the mud by the pretext that it excuses sensuality. Regardless of the exact nature of the error, the letter becomes a study in how to understand the battle against divisive teaching that brings confusion and apostasy. 

And if all that was not interesting enough, there are two references in this short letter to apocryphal sources—namely, to the Assumption of Moses (v. 9) and the Book of Enoch (v. 14).

For anyone who wants to make a study of this book on a budget, here are the links to the online classic Jude commentaries of John Calvin, Thomas Manton and Matthew Henry. Then for anyone who might want to invest in some hardcopies, Keith Mathison has put together a resource for Ligonier on the Top 5 Commentaries on every book of the Bible. Here is the one on Jude and 2 Peter.

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1. Thomas Manton, Jude (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1999), 7.

2. Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1991), 2460.