Jude the Rip-Roaring Fundamentalist

“Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ” (Jude 1:3-4). The overall theme of the little epistle of Jude is apostasy from the New Testament faith and how to deal with it. Jude is a warrior for the truth, and he teaches every believer and every family and every church to be the same. He is a rip-roaring fundamentalist! He is compassionate toward the saints (“mercy unto you, and peace, and love, be multiplied. Beloved ... beloved...”). But he is fierce toward heretics. He isn’t content with preaching “positive truth.” He cares nothing for avoiding controversy. Like the Psalmist, he doesn’t merely love truth, he hates error (Psalm 119:128). He is a contender, a warner, a reprover, a sharp rebuker, plain spoken, even severe in his denunciations. He is in the middle of the fray, just like the prophets of old, like Enoch, John the Baptist, Jesus, Paul, Peter, James, and John the apostle. When I was a young preacher, in about 1980, I wrote to noted evangelical author Warren Wiersbe and asked how he could be associated with Christianity Today and its non-critical promotion of heretics. He replied that I should “take off the gloves and pick up a towel.” That’s not Jude type of counsel. With Jude, fighting and serving is not either/or, it is both! Jude was definitely not a New Evangelical, and for the Bible lover, that is all he needs to know about whether or not New Evangelicalism is the right path.

(Friday Church News Notes, December 20, 2019, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

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