This discrepancy points to the prevailing interests of our Protestant churches in the twentieth century. At that time, much more attention was given to Christianity’s relationship with social issues than with doctrinal matters, and Philemon seems to touch more on social issues—specifically, slavery—whereas Jude seems to focus more on doctrinal matters—specifically, orthodoxy. But if there was ever a time in the church when Jude should have been turned to, it was in the hundred years and more that have just elapsed. This same line of explanation holds good for the relative neglect of 2 and 3 John, and also the way that 1 John is often treated as if it were only about love when it too is about doctrine and heresy. These are telling facts. The major factor at work in the neglect of Jude is that it is wholly concerned with the rebuttal of false teaching and the refutation of false teachers. Given the rampant spread of heresy in the twentieth-century church, to let Jude speak to the church was therefore too close for comfort! That, we think, is the basic and serious explanation of the neglect of his epistle in much of the church in the last century. What Calvin wrote in the sixteenth century applies equally to those years and serves as a warning for our age: “If we consider what Satan has attempted in our age, from the commencement of the revived gospel, and what arts he still busily employs to subvert the faith, and the fear of God, what was a useful warning in the time of Jude is more than necessary in our age” (italics added).

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Hywel R. Jones | “Jude for Today: Preserving the Faith in the Church” | September 2024

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