Jude

Jude is a brief, urgent dispatch from a writer who had hoped to compose something calmer. He had been eager to write about the salvation shared by all, he says, but instead must appeal to his readers to contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. Certain intruders have crept in, turning grace into license, and Jude denounces them in a torrent of images: waterless clouds, wandering stars, twice-dead trees. Yet the letter ends in one of Scripture's most beloved doxologies, entrusting believers to the one who is able to keep them from stumbling and present them blameless with great joy.