Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents

3-4 Jude's Appeal: Contend for the Faith. Jude strongly urges his readers to contend for the faith against the subversive false teachers.

3 The Urgency of the Defense. Beloved (Gk. agapētos). Jude, like Peter, writes in this way to emphasize his strong personal concern (cf. vv. 17, 20; 1 Pet. 2:11; 4:12; 2 Pet. 3:1, 8, 14, 17). Though Jude had wanted to write about our common salvation, the urgent need to contend for the faith took precedence over even the exalted theme of salvation. "The faith" (i.e., the known and received body of truth about Jesus and salvation through him) had been once for all delivered to the saints (i.e., Christians). In other words, by the time that Jude wrote his letter, "the faith" had already been fixed and established in the apostolic teaching of the early church, and therefore could not be changed, but was under attack and in need of defense. Although the NT documents had not yet been collected into a complete canon of Scripture, by this time the foundational NT teachings were circulating in oral form through the apostolic circles. In addition, some NT documents had already begun to circulate among the churches (cf. Col. 4:16; also The Canon of the New Testament). A further implication of this verse is that, after the writings authorized by the apostles were included in the NT canon, nothing more could ever be added to Scripture, since the content of the faith had been delivered "once for all." This is at odds with the teachings of other religions such as Mormonism and Islam, which hold that the NT writings existing today contain corrupted teachings, and that additional authoritative teachings came from God later (e.g., the Book of Mormon or the Qur’an, both of which contradict the NT at many points). This conclusion also differs from the Roman Catholic view that official church tradition (in addition to Scripture) also has absolute divine authority. Since the letter of Jude was included in the NT canon, his letter must also have received early apostolic endorsement for inclusion, and everything in Jude's letter is in complete accord with apostolic teaching and writings of the early church and with "the faith once for all delivered to the saints."