Page 73 - Biblical Ethics Course

Jude
Jude writes to a community that needs to take a stand for the truth. A group of false teachers has entered the
church. Jude felt a pastoral responsibility to this community to keep them from straying into dangerous
territory. In doing so, Jude shows that false teaching is nothing new: It has happened before in the community of
God’s people, and it even happens in the spiritual realm. The church always needs to be on guard against
distortions of truth. Through false revelations, they are prompting believers to use the grace of God as license
for immorality, especially of the sexual kind. Jude warns against compromising with evil. He points out that the
false teachers, in their selfish actions, have rejected the authentic Jesus. Jude challenges Christians to remain
firm in the faith that leads to eternal life. He encourages Christians to live as people empowered by the Holy
Spirit, standing in the love of God (Jude 17–21).

Jude 4 (NASB95)
4 For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this
condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and
Lord, Jesus Christ.

Jude 19–21 (NASB95)
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19 These are the ones who cause divisions, worldly-minded, devoid of the Spirit. But you, beloved, building
yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, 21keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting
anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life.

Love in Action

10.4 Let’s Practice…

1. We are called to be ready in and out of season to proclaim the gospel, and this means passionately
_________________________for the truth.

2 – 7. List six of the characteristics that Paul gave to Timothy as a call to Servanthood Leadership.

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