How does Jude ask believers to resist harmful teachers and help people in danger?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

Jude urges believers to hold to the faith they received. He warns against teachers who turn grace into wrongdoing. He asks readers to build on faith, pray, remain in God’s love, and help people in danger with both correction and mercy.

Chapter breakdown

Jude introduces himself as Jesus Christ’s servant and James’s brother. He wishes his readers mercy, peace, and charity. He had meant to write about their shared salvation, but now needs to urge them to defend the faith delivered to the saints. Certain men have entered secretly. They turn God’s grace into riotous living and deny the only sovereign ruler and Jesus Christ.

Jude gives three warnings about judgment. In this edition, Jesus saves the people from Egypt and later destroys those who do not believe. Angels who leave their original place are kept in darkness for judgment. Sodom, Gomorrha, and nearby cities suffer eternal fire for their sexual wrongdoing. Challoner explains the angels’ lost principality as their original dignity. He explains the evil speech against majesty as attacks on those in authority and on God.

Michael’s dispute with the devil over Moses’s body offers a contrast. Michael does not use abusive judgment but calls on the Lord to command or rebuke the devil. Challoner says that the dispute was passed down by tradition after being known through revelation. He presents as a conjecture the idea that the devil wanted a burial that would lead to worship of Moses’s body. Jude’s opponents, by contrast, speak against things they do not know and corrupt themselves through what they know by instinct.

Jude compares them with Cain, Balaam, and Core. Challoner interprets these examples as harm to others’ souls, self-serving temptation, and resistance to divinely appointed Church leaders. Jude also calls the teachers waterless clouds, fruitless trees, raging waves, and wandering stars. Their feasting serves themselves. They complain, boast, and flatter for gain. Enoch, the seventh from Adam, is cited as foretelling God’s judgment. Challoner says that this prophecy was known through tradition or a book now lost.

Readers must remember the apostles’ warning about mockers who follow their own desires. These men cause division and lack the Spirit. Challoner connects this warning with false teaching and separation from Catholic communion. Jude asks believers to build on holy faith, pray in the Holy Ghost, stay in God’s love, and await Christ’s mercy and eternal life. Challoner explains this spiritual building through faith, love, hope, and prayer.

Jude calls for different forms of help: reprove some, pull others from the fire, and show others mercy with fear while hating the garment stained by sin. Challoner explains firm correction for the obstinate, rescue for those in danger, and gentler care for those at risk through ignorance or weakness. The letter ends by praising God, who can keep believers without sin and bring them before his glory with joy. Challoner says that the address to the only God our Savior may mean the Father or apply equally to the three divine persons, the cause of salvation through Christ, who took human nature.

The story inside

The secret arrival of harmful teachers changes Jude’s purpose in writing. Warnings from the past and vivid images show the danger he sees. He then turns to what his readers should do: keep their faith, pray, live in God’s love, and help others. The closing praise places their hope in God’s power to preserve them.

Lessons worth keeping

1
Jude’s urgent appeal responds to men who turn grace into wrongdoing and deny the Lord (1:3–4).
2
Michael’s restrained speech contrasts with the teachers’ attacks on things they do not understand (1:9–10).
3
The help offered to people in danger includes correction, rescue, and mercy; Challoner explains why these responses differ (1:22–23).

Test your recall

Which archangel does Jude name, and what words does he use instead of abusive speech?

Show answer

He names Michael, who says that the Lord should command the devil. Challoner also gives “rebuke” as the meaning of command (1:9 and its note).

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 138290–138311
1:1. Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James: to them that are beloved in God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ and called. 1:2. Mercy unto you and peace: and charity be fulfilled. 1:3. Dearly beloved, taking all care to write unto you concerning your common salvation, I was under a necessity to write unto you: to beseech you to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints. 1:4. For certain men are secretly entered in (who were written of long ago unto this judgment), ungodly men, turning the grace of our Lord God into riotousness and denying the only sovereign Ruler and our Lord Jesus Christ. 1:5. I will therefore admonish you, though ye once knew all things, that Jesus, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, did afterwards destroy them that believed not. 1:6. And the angels who kept not their principality but forsook their own habitation, he hath reserved under darkness in everlasting chains, unto the judgment of the great day.
Lines 138316–138343
1:7. As Sodom and Gomorrha and the neighbouring cities, in like manner, having given themselves to fornication and going after other flesh, were made an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire. 1:8. In like manner, these men also defile the flesh and despise dominion and blaspheme majesty. Blaspheme majesty.... Speak evil of them that are in dignity; and even utter blasphemies against the divine majesty. 1:9. When Michael the archangel, disputing with the devil, contended about the body of Moses, he durst not bring against him the judgment of railing speech, but said: The Lord command thee. Contended about the body, etc.... This contention, which is no where else mentioned in holy writ, was originally known by revelation, and transmitted by tradition. It is thought the occasion of it was, that the devil would have had the body buried in such a place and manner, as to be worshipped by the Jews with divine honours. Command thee.... or rebuke thee. 1:10. But these men blaspheme whatever things they know not: and what things soever they naturally know, like dumb beasts, in these they are corrupted. 1:11. Woe unto them! For they have gone in the way of Cain: and after the error of Balaam they have for reward poured out themselves and have perished in the contradiction of Core.
Lines 138351–138371
1:12. These are spots in their banquets, feasting together without fear, feeding themselves: clouds without water, which are carried about by winds: trees of the autumn, unfruitful, twice dead, plucked up by the roots: 1:13. Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own confusion: wandering stars, to whom the storm of darkness is reserved for ever. 1:14. Now of these Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying: Behold, the Lord cometh with thousands of his saints: Prophesied.... This prophecy was either known by tradition, or from some book that is since lost. 1:15. To execute judgment upon all and to reprove all the ungodly for all the works of their ungodliness, whereby they have done ungodly: and for all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against God. 1:16. These are murmurers, full of complaints, walking according to their own desires: and their mouth speaketh proud things, admiring persons, for gain’s sake.
Lines 138373–138429
1:17. But you, my dearly beloved, be mindful of the words which have been spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ: But you, my dearly beloved, be mindful, etc.... He now exhorts the faithful to remain steadfast in the belief and practice of what they had heard from the apostles, who had also foretold that in aftertimes (lit. in the last time) there should be false teachers, scoffing and ridiculing all revealed truths, abandoning themselves to their passions and lusts; who separate themselves from the Catholic communion by heresies and schisms. Sensual men.... carried away and enslaved by the pleasures of the senses. 1:18. Who told you that in the last time there should come mockers, walking according to their own desires in ungodlinesses. 1:19. These are they who separate themselves, sensual men, having not the Spirit. 1:20. But you, my beloved, building yourselves upon your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, 1:21. Keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, unto life everlasting. Building yourselves upon your most holy faith.... Raising by your actions, a spiritual building, founded, 1st, upon faith; 2d, on the love of God; 3d, upon hope, whilst you are waiting for the mercies of God, and the reward of eternal life; 4th, joined with the great duty of prayer. 1:22. And some indeed reprove, being judged: 1:23. But others save, pulling them out of the fire. And on others have mercy, in fear, hating also the spotted garment which is carnal. And some indeed reprove being judged.... He gives them another instruction to practice charity in endeavouring to convert their neighbour, where they will meet with three sorts of persons: 1st, With persons obstinate in their errors and sins; these may be said to be already judged and condemned; they are to be sharply reprehended, reproved, and if possible convinced of their error. 2d, As to others you must endeavour to save them, by pulling them, as it were, out of the fire, from the ruin they stand in great danger of. 3d, You must have mercy on others in fear, when you see them through ignorance of frailty, in danger of being drawn into the snares of these heretics; with these you must deal more gently and mildly, with a charitable compassion, hating always, and teaching others to hate the carnal garment which is spotted, their sensual and corrupt manners, that defile both the soul and body. 1:24. Now to him who is able to preserve you without sin and to present you spotless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ: 1:25. To the only God our Saviour through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory and magnificence, empire and power, before all ages, and now, and for all ages of ages. Amen.