When I was a teenager my extended family organized a reunion in Europe. My U.S. relatives connected with my European relatives and plotted out a multi-week celebration and tour for all of us as the younger generation (myself included) met many cousins, second cousins, and great aunts and uncles for the first time. It was a lot of fun, looking back. Lots of beautiful scenery, lots of fun experiences, and many interesting people.
Aside from the flight across the Atlantic, this trip included a good amount of travel once we were there. The host families weren’t clustered in one town, they were sprinkled throughout different areas, so we did lots of smaller trips from region to region. One day as our group was waiting for a train, one of the members of our party showed us how she had made photocopies of passports for her and her husband. In the event that something happened to their actual passports, the photocopies would help in replacing the passports they’d need to get home.
This was a very good idea, and the U.S. State Department actually recommends doing this. We were all impressed with the idea, until she folded the copies up and tucked them back into the bag right next to her actual passports. That’s when everyone started pointing out that the copies should be stored somewhere else, because if they were kept together, whatever unfortunate circumstance befell the actual passports would also happen to the copies.
We’ll come back to that in a minute. The Bible impresses on us that it’s our job as Christians to be the salt and light for the world (meaning that Christ through us is the force that slows the world’s moral decay). We’re ordered to spread the Gospel with the message of what Christ has done for us. It also points out, however, that some situations are so spiritually dangerous that they must be approached with extreme caution.
The New Testament book of Jude is only a single chapter long, and spends a lot of its time talking about apostates, or those that have somehow defected from true, biblical faith. In fact, it’s the only New Testament book that’s dedicated exclusively to confronting those that warp such faith. Apostates intentionally sowed incorrect doctrine among early followers of Christ. Jude called on the church to fight to maintain correct doctrine, and for believers to contend for their faith.
In this struggle there are people of biblical faith, there are apostates that pervert biblical faith, and there are those that are caught in the middle, either trying to figure out what to believe or not yet completely firm in their decision. It’s this third group that Jude discusses in verses 22 and 23.
Verse 22 is fairly straightforward: And on some have compassion, making a distinction. The people caught in the middle need to hear the truth, certainly, and that’s part of the role of the Christian. This verse is more or less telling us not to abandon people that have been influenced by wrongful teaching. We’re to have compassion on them because it’s still possible to sway them to the truth. There’s a dire warning in the next verse though. Verse 23 says but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh.
This is very strange. Aside from “praise the Lord,” some version of “fear not” is the most common command in the Bible. Why, then, are we urged to do something with fear? It adds a high degree of emphasis for the reader.
Did you ever literally pull something from a fire? Speed is important. The teaching of apostates can be so sticky, so subtle, and so dangerous, that if I could paraphrase Jude, he’d be saying “if you can’t save them without getting yourself sucked in, don’t attempt it. Give it a quick try, but if you’re starting to get burned yourself, run the other way.” These people are to be given the Gospel, just like everyone else, but it’s to be delivered with a great fear of being contaminated by apostates’ lies or misleading worldview. Think back to the passport example. If the actual passports and the copies are kept in very close proximity, whatever danger befalls one will happen to the other. The two versions can be carried by the same person for short periods of time if necessary, but it’s a bad idea to keep them together in the same place for the whole trip. Jude punctuates his point by metaphorically suggesting that even the garment of one so dangerous is to be avoided for fear of being affected by false teaching.
Are you a Christ-follower? If so, part of your duty is to be very familiar with scripture so you can be on guard against false teaching, and can confront it when you encounter it. The teachers who intentionally twist God’s word will be judged harshly, but by that point it will likely be too late to help those that fall victim to these teachers. This is why it’s essential that when you hear some biblical teaching you know to be incorrect, you speak up.
Need some examples? You’ll encounter many people that don’t believe any of the following, but be especially watchful and on guard when you hear people only partially agree with these concepts:
-Jesus Christ is God’s only son, both fully God and fully man. We cannot ever be equal to Him. He is the only way to salvation, an eternity with God, and Heaven.
-The Bible is made up of the Old and New Testaments. It’s not missing anything (there’s no additional component that’s necessary in order to “complete” the set of scripture).
-Beware of people that claim to have insider information or who “know what the Bible really means.” Christ’s sacrifice is a gift to all humanity…it’s to be shared freely, not hoarded.
Lord, with 8 billion people on the planet, there’s a lot of teaching out there. Some of it’s true, some of it sounds true, and some of it’s downright wrong. Thank you for sending the Holy Spirit to be our personal lie detectors when it comes to what You’ve revealed. Help us stay rooted in scripture, amplify our understanding, and give us the boldness and confidence to contend for the faith, in order that You may be glorified. I ask in Your name, Amen.