Summary of the Bible in 66 Posts: Contend- Jude

 Jude 1:3 ESV

Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. 


Salvation is pretty much the greatest theme in Scripture: how we can be reconciled to God through faith in Christ crucified. That's what Jude wanted to focus on. Sadly, false teachers we're perverting the gospel, so he called for his readers to contend for the faith.

A popular false teaching is that having professed faith in Jesus, we can then carry on business as usual. In reality, the evidence that we trust in Jesus is a changed life. We will be saved ultimately in eternity to sin no more.

People assume that Christians should be 'nice', that we shouldn't say 'boo to a goose'. Yet the truth needs to be upheld against all the lies the devil throws at us. We need to let the truth loose on false teachers.

'Defend the truth?' C.H. Spurgeon, the 'prince of preachers' famously said; 'I would sooner defend a lion'. We mustn't cage the truth like false teachers try to do, to lock it away. God forbid that we would tart up falsehood like a donkey in a lion skin (as in C.S. Lewis's Last Battle from the Chronicles of Narnia).

'God, forbid that we would be impotent in the face of untruths. May we stand for the Truth, in his name we pray, amen'.

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