Jude

vs 1

We start off with a question - who is this Jude character? He tells us he's a servant of Jesus, and the brother of James. Jesus had a brother called James. But there was also the apostle James. Is it really possible that Joseph named his sons Jesus, James and Jude? Easy to remember I guess. Otherwise, Jude is the forgotten brother of James and John, sons of Zebedee.

And it's to Christians. Those who have been called is a bit like Peter's opening of 1 Peter.

In greek, you can also spell his name Judas, and you can pronounce it Ieyoda (hehehe).

vs 2

The letter also has that typical abundant blessing message.

vs 3

Jude was keen to write possibly a more friendly letter about the joy of salvtion, but heresy and church division seem to have necessitated this letter instead. He doesn't talk about being moved by the Spirit or anything so holy - he just saw the need, and put quill to papyrus it seems. Of course that doesn't stop it being inspired - basically every NT letter is occasional. Working your way through Jude, though, you really do find yourself wondering about the canon.

vs 4

Marked or written about, these guys obviously deserve condemnation. I don't know how literally to take the idea of secretly sneaking in - when you read the whole letter, a lot of it is very metaphorical. I guess Jude is trying to give the idea of them going unnoticed and being accepted. But they're certainly not Christian - they mix the flaw of freedom from Corinth with the denial of Christ as Lord of the Judaisers. They're holding beliefs and attitudes and doing actions that are going to seriously mess up the church.

vs 5

The way he says "I know you know it, but I wanted to bring it up" makes it sound like Jude wasn't very confident. Paul and Peter bring up well known stories of the OT all the time - Abraham is in most letters I reckon. But they just wade in with it - Jude uses this little precursor.

His point being of course that not all who are saved are really saved, if you know what I mean. All the Israelites were saved from Egypt, but not all were saved from God.

vs 6

Same point, but using angels this time. And you know, try as you might, you will never find an OT reference as clear as Jude is about the falling of angels. They are stuck in the middle of obscure prophecies, and are intepreted that way. Here we play an interesting game with Jude. He uses many non-Biblical sources. Because he quotes them, does that make them true? The whole things, or just the bits he quotes? If they are true, why aren't the recorded in the OT?

This verse is one of the less problematic, because the building of an angelology in Judaism is probably what Jude is building on, and that is - we hope - mostly built on the OT.

vs 7

Same result again, with Sodom and Gomorrah as examples. It's interesting to think of Sodom and Gomorrah as the example of God's final wrath being brought to the world with fire. It's especially appropriate against the background of the world's initial judgement by water.

vs 8

Oh, that word "dreaming" gets used all the time in the NT... well, twice. The other time it's used is to translate Joel 2 regarding old men dreaming dreams. This suggests to me a meaning of visions type dreaming. But the word also supposedly means to be beguiled by sensual images. The second makes more sense in this context, but it's entirely possibly that these guys were either having dreamlike prophesies that were leading them astray, or they were making such things up to back up their crappy attitudes.

vs 9

You'll never find this in the Bible - it's apocryphal. Jude's point is that the archangel Michael won't even slander Satan, because the slander of celestial beings is wrong. But because Jude uses the story (possibly from 'The Assumption of Moses'), does that mean we should believe it? Most scholars say no, and to treat this in the same way as Paul quoting pagan poets. It is impossible to vouch for their spiritual authority or even their historical accuracy. But the story certainly makes the point.

vs 10

Instincts about what God wants aren't always correct. These guys hated anything they couldn't grasp (Jesus' Lordship and deity seems an easy example) and instinctively followed what they thought was right (freedom beyond God's boundaries). And that's the cause of their destruction.

vs 11

Get your OT skills polished for these. Cain, who rebelled against God and walked away from him. Balaam, who slandered his donkey even after it spoke to him (so he's there for slandering spiritual things - the profit thing is tied to the false teachers, not Balaam). Korah, who? One of the three Levites who led the rebellion of Levites against Moses, and got eaten by the earth for their trouble. So these false teachers have rebelled against God, possibly by trying to promote their stupid views.

vs 12-13

See what I mean by colourful metaphorical langauge? Shepherds could suggest that some of them had positions of authority in the church, or just that they are being mockingly called shepherds because of their lack of pastoral care. Because this reference is tied up with the love feast though, it does make you wonder a little about their tradition for doing that. Was everyone to bring enough food for more than one (to help the poor)? The link seems to obvious to be only metaphorical.

See how useless they are - a cloud without rain, a tree without fruit. I'm not too sure about the wave analogy, except that I guess it means their shame is visible and they stir it up. But the star analogy is clear - they shoot across the sky, then disappear, and blackest darkness is reserved. That's cold.