Inductive Study: Jude Overview

This week we'll start our study of the book of Jude.  Before we take a look at the book verse by verse, let's examine the background to Jude.

Dear Heavenly Father, help me to hear and understand your Word.  Remove distractions during this study.  Thank you for Your Grace and the Scriptures.  In Jesus name I pray, Amen.

Jude is short for Judah in the Hebrew and Judas in the Greek.  Jude is not Judas Iscariot or the apostle Judas Thaddaeus.  He is the brother of James,  the half-brother of Jesus as stated in Matthew 13:55 "Is this not the carpenter’s son? Is not His mother called Mary? And His brothers James, Joses, Simon, and Judas.". Therefore, as the brother of James, Jude is also the half-brother of Jesus.  His parents are Mary and Joseph.  Jude believed in Jesus after the resurrection when his brother believed, 1 Corinthians 15:7 "After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles."  According to Acts 1:14, he waited with the apostles for the Holy Spirit, "These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers."

Jude was written between 60 to 80 A.D. for Jewish Christians.  The book was written to instruct believers against False Teachers and dangerous tenets such as live in sin and still have the hope of eternal life.  These false teachers were believed to be the Gnostics.  They were a Christian heresy that combined the world's religions and started in the first century.  The Gnostics shunned the material world and embraced the spiritual world.  This could be accomplished through gnosis or knowledge by only the initiated.  Their religion was very complicated and used terms like divine spark and transcendence.

There is some debate whether Jude belongs in the Bible.  The concern is around the similarities with 2 Peter chapter 2, use of apocryphal books from the Septuagint, its brevity, and its structure (Jude doesn't include a thanksgiving greeting at the beginning or a personal greeting at the end). 

The apocryphal books are of unknown origin, suspect authorship, and not part of the Hebrew Bible.  In Jude 9, a citation is used from the Assumption of Moses.  In Jude 14 and 15, 1 Enoch is used however some scholars point to Deuteronomy 33:2.  Regardless, the citations are probably used as a cultural reference to help Jude prove his text.  Under the conviction of the Holy Spirit, the church found that the authority of God stands behind the letter of Jude. Since the letter was questioned, tested, and accepted, proves the strength of its authenticity.   I look forward to studying this text.

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