Pressing Matters

We don’t always end up doing the things we want to do. We set out intent on one thing, and by the time the day is done, we’ve done something wholly different. It’s usually for the better because it’s always best to do the things that need doing than the things you want to do. There are a hundred things I’d rather do than mow my lawn, but it needs to get done, and putting it off will only make matters worse. That’s always the thing about things that need to get done; they never get done on their own, and the more time passes, the more problematic the situation becomes.

Kicking the can down the road is not an option; it’s a copout. It’s something only politicians get to do regularly, and even they run out of road at some point. When that happens, there’s always the press conference announcing that they are not running for reelection and have decided to spend more time with friends and family instead. That they have no friends and their family hates them is rarely mentioned because everyone knows to keep to the script.

By all accounts, Jude had set out to write a somewhat milquetoast letter to the brethren. You can’t get very edgy when discussing our common salvation, no matter how hard one might try, and his intended topic was just that. I know how he felt. Most mornings, I wake up intent on writing about puppies, kittens, rainbows, and toddlers eating ice cream. I don’t set out to offend or make enemies, but somehow I always do. Hating the messenger because you hate the message has become another one of those accepted practices of late that was rarely ever done in the past. If I don’t like the things you say, I hate you, and you must die. That is the new standard of tolerance, even among those who call themselves believers. The Bible is no longer the final arbiter in any spiritual argument; it’s how some individual or other interpreted what the Bible says and what biases they use.

That’s why the Book says we must rightly divide the Word of truth, not seek to be divided from one another by it. It’s not just one verse among the thirty-one thousand and change in Scripture that is profitable for doctrine, correction, and instruction, but all Scripture. Are some verses more profitable than others? Most assuredly. If you disagree, squeeze a sermon or five out of the who begat whom in Chronicles. Even those, dry as they are, are profitable to some extent. It can be an outright fount if you’re looking for inspiration for a boy’s name.

When it comes to our common salvation, God kept it simple so no one could complain that it was overly complicated and beyond their comprehension. Individuals who attempt to complicate it needlessly do so either out of pride and self-importance or a vested interest. Jude was not planning on exploring new horizons and going where no man had gone before. Doctrine surrounding salvation had already been established, and he’d decided to lend his voice to encourage the brethren.

That all changed when he sat down to write because while he’d had one topic in mind, the Holy Spirit guided him to something wholly different.

Jude 3-4, “Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Passivity is not a virtue. While fully aware that any form of aggression is now considered toxic, and if you defend the truth, you are deemed a mortal enemy of progress, the Bible is clear on what our position ought to be. When we see the faith maligned, distorted, misrepresented, and denatured, we’re not told to sit idly by and watch it happen. On the contrary, we are told we must contend earnestly for the faith, meaning we should put up a fight.

Contending earnestly presupposes a struggle. It presupposes action on your part and a willingness to defend the faith as though it were worth more to you than saying a few words and waving the Bible you borrowed from your mom for that one service so you wouldn’t feel out of place.

Not only does Jude insist we should contend earnestly for the faith, he goes on to tell us why. It’s not so we can beat our chests in vain, and it’s not so we can go demon hunting in the wild. It should be a sobering thought that the enemy is closer than you think. It can’t be clearer that the call is coming from inside the house and not from somewhere far away.

I had to do this, Jude says; it was necessary to write this letter because while you were all bickering and figuring out who got the bigger piece of the pie or what political influence you might be able to exert, ungodly men have crept in unnoticed whose singular desire is to pervert the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.

While you were busy packing because 88 reasons why Christ is returning in 88 really spoke to your spirit, men who were long ago marked out for condemnation high-jacked the message, and no one did a thing to stop it.

That they were able to creep in in the first place is a witness against the church, for had they been earnestly contending for the faith, had they been awake, aware, on guard, and vigilant, the enemy would have been routed long before it was able to take root within.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.