Jude
3-7 (NIV) Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the
salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith
that was once for all entrusted to the saints. 4 For certain men whose
condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you.
They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for
immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.
NOTE: Jude wanted to
write about their shared salvation, instead he writes about the need to contend
for the salvation. He says that certain men have slipped in to their
congregation--they are godless; they use grace as an excuse for sexual sin; and
they deny Jesus as their Lord. So while Jude could be writing an encouraging
note about their shared experience, he feels compelled ("had to
write") a harsher note, why? Well, one possibility is that the teaching of
false teachers is spreading, and even worse, the readers are accepting these
teachings. Now, lifestyle does not validate or invalidate truth. Truth stands
on its own. Lifestyle reveals an incongruence between truth and obedience. It
is possible to teach truth and not have a lifestyle that supports it as well as
to teach false truth and have a lifestyle that does support it. So the bottom
line is the need for truth. But at a secondary level, lifestyle, in fact can be
correlated to truth. Most of the time there is congruence between what a person teaches
and how a person lives. If anything, lifestyle can be used as a signpost or caution, ie,
does this person really know what he is teaching, or as a commendation, ie,
this person would appear to have figured out some things. But the absolute
determinant is truth itself as revealed in the scripture. So, we should be
careful about evaluating truth based on the individual but rather based it on the word,
and only used character as a secondary tool.
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