Lookahead: Lengthy Background on the Book of Jude and Its Author (Not for the timid).
According to wiki: “The epistle title is written as follows: ‘Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James’ (NRSV). ‘James’ is generally taken to mean James the Just, a prominent leader in the early church. Not a lot is known of Jude, which would explain the apparent need to identify him by reference to his better-known brother…Clement of Alexandria (c. 150–215 AD) wrote in his work ‘Comments on the Epistle of Jude’ that Jude, the Epistle of Jude’s author, was a son of Joseph and a brother of Jesus (without specifying whether he was a son of Joseph by a previous marriage or of Joseph and Mary)…[but there has been ambiguity about] whether ‘brother’ means someone who has the same father and mother, or a half-brother or cousin or more distant familial relationship…”1
Well, first of all, was it “Jude” or “Judas” or “Judah?”
Strong’s Concordance says, all of the above—
Definition: Judah, Judas, the name of several Israelites, also one of the twelve tribes of Israel, also the Southern kingdom
Usage: Judah, Judas, Jude.
The Greek is Ioudas or Iούδας, α, ὁ
Transliteration: Ioudas
Phonetic Spelling: (ee-oo-das’)
of Hebrew origin Yehudah
By the way, the Peshitta (Aramaic Translation of the New Testament which was first published in the second century A.D.) also refers to the author as Yehudah:
Eastern phonetic : i: ‘ hu: da:
Category : proper noun
English : Genesis : 24, 352
And, irrespective of whether Judah was brother, half-brother, or cousin, was he a close relative of Jesus? If so, WOW! What a transformation occurred. At one point, Jesus’ family paid Him a visit and tried to “drag Him out of the ministry” because they thought He was a mad man. (Mark 3:21) But by Acts 1:14, Jude was sold—hook, line and sinker—prayerfully waiting in the Upper Room with Jesus’ mother and the apostles. When Jude introduces himself in the first verse of the Book of Jude, he doesn’t refer to himself as a relative of Jesus. He refers to himself as Jesus’ slave. (So does James in his epistle.) What was it that changed Jude’s perception? Did he witness something indisputably miraculous that Jesus said or did? Or maybe, as a family member, he was among those who witnessed Jesus’ crucifixion and death. And then saw Him after He had been gloriously resurrected.
One thing that is interesting is that he appears to have followed Jesus’ example of working miracles and dying on a cross…
According to three different editions of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, the tradition is that Jude was…Judas, brother of James, called also Thaddeus and Lebbeus, (who) preached to the Edessenes, and to all Mesopotamia: he was slain under Augarus, king of the Edessenes, in Berito3 “Being sent to Edessa, he wrought many miracles and made many converts, which exciting the resentment of the people in power, he was crucified.”4…”He was crucified…about 72 A.D.”5 Edessa was approximately 200 miles southeast of Cappadocia (mentioned in Acts and 1 Peter) and is part of present day Turkey. I wasn’t able to find anything specific on Berito or Augarus. But I found a wiki reference about Edessa as follows: “The precise date of the introduction of Christianity into Edessa is not known. However, there is no doubt that even before AD 190 Christianity had spread vigorously within Edessa and its surroundings and that shortly after, the royal house joined the church. According to a legend first reported by Eusebius in the fourth century, King Abgar V was converted by Thaddeus of Edessa…”6 I subsequently found a reference that said Abgarus was another name for Augarus, the king who crucified Jude. So was it Abgar V and did he turn on Jude? Another possibility: I found references about Abgar’s successors, Manu V and VI, to the effect that they went out of their way to persecute the nascent church. All this happened in the first century A.D. Therefore, it’s possible that Jude unfortunately tangled with one of the Manu monarchs.
Back to wiki, there is also a body of belief that Thaddeus or Lebbeus were alternate names for one of Jesus’ twelve apostles, Judas (not Iscariot). This Judas was not a member of Jesus’ family:
(Jude) “is generally identified with Thaddeus, and is also variously called Jude of James, Jude Thaddaeus, Judas Thaddaeus or Lebbaeus…Aside from Judas Iscariot, the New Testament mentions Jude or Judas six times, in four different contexts:
1. ‘Jude of James’, one of the twelve apostles (Luke 6:16 and Acts 1:13);
2. ‘Judas, (not Judas Iscariot)’, apparently an apostle (John 14:22);
3. the brother (or close relative) of Jesus (Matthew 13:55, Mark 6:3);
4. the writer of the Epistle of Jude, who identifies himself as “the brother of James” (Jude 1)
…Catholic tradition generally holds all of these four to be the same person; while Protestants generally believe 1&2 to be one person, and 3&4 to be one person, but different from 1&2.”7
Bottom line, we’ll know when we get to heaven. But I like the whole idea of Jude undergoing a radical transformation from critically disbelieving family member to slave of Jesus. Jude’s case represents solid evidence that it can happen.
Moving along, the Book of Jude is generally held to be about apostates. “Jude is the only NT book devoted exclusively to confronting ‘apostacy,’ meaning defection from the true, biblical faith (vv. 3,17). Apostates are described elsewhere in 2 Thess. 2:10; Heb. 10:29; 2 Pet. 2:1-22; 1 John 2:18-23. He wrote to condemn the apostates and to urge the believers to contend for the faith.”8
On the other hand, the book could also be about false teachers who were trying to infiltrate a community of believers. “Jude recognized that false teachers often peddled their wares unnoticed by the faithful, so he worked to heighten the awareness of the believers by describing in vivid detail how terrible dissenters actually were.”9
But I have a theory that the book is actually a guide for dealing with any unbelievers whom we would encounter—whether in the “community”—or out and about in the daily course of our lives. (Of course, the believer’s job is made exponentially more difficult when they are in the church building hypocritically sitting next to us in the pew.)
However, the commentator’s brand of unbeliever is different from the garden variety sinner who’s tempting the believer (deliberately or no). Frequently the former brand knows his scripture and all about the church. His primary MO is attacking the believer’s faith—and this may be strategically deliberate—or just a case of pride running wild. If unchecked, this type of unbeliever can render the believer spiritually ineffectual, going through the motions out of sense of discipline. But, taken to its limits, the bruised believer’s faith in Jesus may be severely/compromised.
Jude provides some helpful tips about how to deal with this type of unbeliever—tips that can make life appreciably easier. The techniques apply to these unbelievers who could surface in any situation or setting—whether they be apostates, false teachers, hypocrites, or victims of the first three who are now tragically riding the wave.
Additionally, I believe that Jude’s manual not only covers this type of unbeliever; he also provides guidelines for dealing with “unchurched” unbelievers of the garden variety.
We don’t know who the intended audience of this epistle was, or what community of believers was dealing with this assault of the enemy. We do know that the epistle is extremely brief (fourth shortest book of the Bible), but power-packed in targeted words of warning and comfort that Jude wanted to get out to the believers. The handbook is a highly compressed quick read that will solve a lot of problems for any unfortunate believers who are stuck in this faith-wrecking maelstrom—and hopefully set a lot of people free.
Now here’s a hint about the most powerful tactic of all that we’ll be discussing over the next several weeks: Galatians 5:6b tells us how to keep our faith when “the heathens” try to wreck it.
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1Wikipedia: /wiki/Epistle_of_Jude
2Assyrian Languages Website: sureth/dosearch.php
4John Foxe, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs (London, England: William Tegg, 1863), 24.
5John Foxe, The New Foxe’s Book of Martyrs (North Brunswick, New Jersey: Bridge-Logos Publishers, 1997), 8.
6Wikipedia: /wiki/Edessa#
7 John Fullerton MacArthur, Jr., The MacArthur Study Bible (Nashville, Tennessee: Word Publishing, 1997), 1983
8Wikipedia: /wiki/Jude_the_Apostle
9Chuck Swindoll Website: /resources/bible/the-general-epistles/jude
Cross-Denominational Bible Study 