Why the Jewishness of Jude Matters, Part 1

After I finished teaching the book of Revelation in Sunday School (which went for about 11 months!), I took a short break before beginning a new series on the letters of Jude and 2 Peter. Revelation has 22 chapters; by contrast, these letters are quite short. (2 Peter has three chapters and Jude just one.)

So I thought these brief books would be easier to manage than Revelation, and in terms of the total amount of work I’ll put into the class, that’s true. But God is good at bringing issues to our attention, things that force us to slow down and ponder what we read.

There’s something in the book of Jude that has me wondering.

It will take me a couple of blog posts to work through it, so here we go!

If you skim through these letters, you’ll notice they’re remarkably similar. Both Jude and Peter wrote to warn Christians about the encroachment of certain false teachers who aimed to disrupt established beliefs and practices. 2 Peter 2 and most of Jude are basically the same. The difference is that Peter adds material in chapters 1 and 3 that Jude leaves out. But they share a central concern about heretics.

Another difference is their respective audiences. It looks to me like Peter wrote to Gentile churches while Jude addressed Jewish Christians. This may not seem important, but it underlies what made me curious, so I want to unpack it.

Here’s my reasoning about the recipients. In  2 Peter 3:1, the apostle writes, “Dear friends, this is now my second letter to you. I have written both of them as reminders to stimulate you to wholesome thinking.” If 1 Peter is the first letter, then he’s corresponding with the same believers in both letters. 1 Peter 1:1 identifies those readers as “God’s elect, exiles scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia.” In Peter’s day and age, this was Gentile territory. (See this map for the layout in what is now the country of Turkey.)

Now it’s true that these Christians could have been ethnic Jews who accepted the gospel of Jesus Christ. But the fact that Peter calls them “exiles” is telling. For several centuries, Jews had been exiled from their homeland. Some had returned to Judea, but the majority were scattered throughout the Middle East and the Mediterranean regions. They’d adjusted to living in Gentile lands.

But Gentiles who became Christians soon discovered that loyalty to Jesus alienated them from their own societies. Increasing numbers of friends, co-workers, and family members wanted nothing to do with them. These followers of Christ found themselves as exiles in their own homes and cities. Peter wrote his first letter to encourage them as they faced ostracism and affliction.

The second letter, then, addresses the same churches, but it concerns an internal problem. Now the issue isn’t persecution; it’s heresy. As Peter warns, “there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them–bringing swift destruction on themselves. ²Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute.” (2 Peter 2:1-2).

Besides spouting theological distortions about the Lord Jesus, these heretics also promoted selfishness and immorality. Peter declares that “they will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done. Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you. ¹⁴With eyes full of adultery, they never stop sinning; they seduce the unstable; they are experts in greed–an accursed brood!” (2 Peter 2:13-14).

Tell us what you think, Peter, don’t hold back!

So these fellows were corrupting the Christian life. They misrepresented the person and work of Jesus and they disregarded His call to holiness.

Although that’s bad, I can understand how such teaching might tempt Gentile Christians. After all, these believers were accustomed to pursuing fleshly indulgences before they got saved. In his first letter, Peter reminds them that “you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do–living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry” (1 Peter 4:3).

Through God’s grace in Christ, those days are gone, so don’t regress! That’s what the apostle Peter is telling these redeemed Gentiles.

Jude writes about the heretics, too, but to a different group of Christians. Again, most of his letter contains the material we find in 2 Peter 2. But while Jude skips what Peter covers in chapters 1 and 3, he adds some of his own items of significance that suggest a Jewish Christian audience.

The first is the way he identifies himself. In the opening verse, Jude calls himself “a servant of Jesus Christ and a brother of James” (Jude 1). He’s being modest; he and James are the Lord’s brothers (Matthew 13:55)! While Jude doesn’t ignore this family connection, he does downplay it twice.

James was one of the leaders of the church in Jerusalem (see Acts 12:17; 15:13; 21:18; 1 Corinthians 15:7; Galatians 1:19; 2:9, 12; James 1:1), so he would have been a respected figure in the eyes of Jewish Christians. This is the brother Jude ties himself to; not Jesus, James. I’m more egotistical; I would have bragged that Christ was my brother!

Yet rather than tout his sibling relationship with Jesus, Jude calls himself His servant. In the biblical world, servants were household members (Ephesians 5:22-6:9; Colossians 3:18-4:1; 1 Timothy 6:1-2; Titus 2:2-10; 1 Peter 2:18-3:7), although they usually lacked the status accorded blood relatives. Jude situates himself in Christ’s family, but he does so in the humblest fashion his culture allows.

But overall, by labeling himself as he did, this apostle is offering credentials that would have carried weight with Jewish followers of Jesus.

The second is his use of Jewish literature. It’s not surprising that New Testament writers quote the Old Testament; we expect them to! But Jude goes further. In vs. 9 of his letter, he alludes to a Jewish document called the Assumption of Moses. And in vss. 14-15, Jude quotes 1 Enoch 1:9. Both of these works are products of Jewish writers during the intertestamental period (roughly 400 BC to 30 AD). They’re not Scripture, but they reflect the Jewish religious understanding of that era. The Christians in Peter’s churches wouldn’t have been familiar with writings such as these, but Jude’s churches are another story. Peter makes no reference to these books, but Jude does.

It’s possible the false teachers were basing some of their doctrines and practices on intertestamental literature. If so, then Jude is using their own resources against them. The apostle is appropriating the truth wherever he finds it so it can serve the purposes of the pure gospel.

Okay, all this is by way of background. And it brings us to the issue that I’m wrestling with. The heretical teachings and behaviors seem to be tailor-made for Gentile Christians. Those who left their idolatrous and sinful pasts could be lured into returning.

But Jewish Christians? 

Even before they began to follow Jesus, these men and women abhorred idolatry. If they learned anything in synagogue, listening to the Torah, it was how to live a moral life pleasing to God. I don’t see how these heresies could have endangered Jude’s churches.

Still, Jude thought otherwise!

So that’s why I felt stuck. I believe the Word of God, but I had trouble following the Lord’s train of thought. 

In the next post, I’ll dig into other heresies talked about in the New Testament that have a Jewish slant. These might shed light on this issue. Or I might get more confused! But it’s worth investigating, because knowing the mind of Christ about truth and error is our greatest joy!