Contending for the Faith Without Being Contentious

INTRODUCTION

Edmund Burke once said, "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." It's also the price of maintaining the Christian faith. Maintaining the faith is a little bit like raising children. If you display too much harshness, you'll discourage your child; if you fail to discipline, you'll raise a spoiled brat. If we develop a watchdog mentality and start building fences of our own making, with the good intention of preserving the faith, we will produce modern day Pharisees. But if we adopt a sort of "loosey, goosey" attitude that says, "what you believe and how you behave isn't any of my business," we'll end up in worldliness. One extreme is just about as bad as the other.

The epistle of Jude is devoted to keeping the faith alive. This short letter steers a mid-course between extremes. It is written in language and thought patterns that are somewhat foreign to us. That's not to say that it's impossible to understand. It simply means it does not read like USA Today. For that reason, many people have encountered some of the difficult material and neglected the study of this short letter, which is unfortunate. Jude's message is very much on target for the kind of stresses and pressures we face in our day and time.

Who was this man called Jude? Most scholars believe him to be the brother of Jesus. Mark 6:3 identifies James, Joseph, Judas and Simon as the brothers of Jesus. The writer of the letter, in our current study, identified himself as the brother of James. Thus, most people believe him to be the sibling of James, the Lord's brother.

The letter was addressed "to those who have been called, who are loved by God the Father and kept by Jesus Christ" (verse 1). There is nothing in the letter to suggest where the original readers of the letter resided. We will not be able to deal with the letter in depth. Many questions arise in the letter, such as the nature of angels, questions about Jude's quotation from books outside the Bible, etc. will not be dealt with in this presentation. The constraints of space will require us to stay with Jude's main point and avoid the temptation to take these interesting side roads.

The Challenge of the Letter

The challenge is laid out in the third verse. Jude had intended to write a letter of a somewhat less controversial nature, but circumstances had arisen which required him write much more vigorously. In the last part of verse 3, he said, "I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints."

We need to ask two questions about that challenge.

1. What is contending?

2. What did Jude mean by "the faith?"

First, let's talk about contending. "Contending" is a militant term. The RSV translates it "fight." The term suggests the presence of opposition. There's an interesting little twist in the Greek language that we miss in all of our English translation. The word translated "contending" is very similar to the word which we translate "agony." It suggests a certain degree of intensity. It also suggests a price to be paid.

Recently news reports have told us about a most unusual war. We're attempting to fight a war in Yugoslavia, in which no one except the enemy gets hurt. The history of warfare offers ample evidence that you can't really do that. When Jude urged his readers to contend for the faith, he recognized the fact that the contender is vulnerable to attack. He's going to take some hits. Remaining faithful comes a price.

Before we come to the close of our study, we will understand that "contending for the faith" is not a license for contentiousness. When you have been assaulted, attacked, made to look like villain, and pressured to do things that ungodly, there's a strong temptation to respond in kind. In other words, when somebody attacks, you say, "If you're trying to pick a fight, I'll be happy to oblige." That kind of behavior is not within the range of contending for the faith and if you read all the epistle of Jude, you'll understand why.

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