Introduction
I can’t remember the last time I heard a
message based on the book of Obadiah.
Haggai and Philemon are the basis of messages now and again, and II and
III John may occasionally receive a passing reference. Of all the little books in the Bible, Jude
seems to receive the most attention. If
a minister really studies this book and puts some effort into it, he or she can
get at least a month’s worth of material from Jude. It’s too bad that more ministers don’t mine
Jude’s depth of meaning.
Obadiah, Haggai, Philemon, II John, III
John and Jude are what I refer to as the Bible’s little books. All of these books contain a single chapter
except for Haggai which has two chapters.
Obadiah and Haggai are the smallest books
of the Minor Prophets. As a whole, the
Minor Prophets are not studied as much as are the Major Prophetic books of
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel. The
Minor Prophet that seems to receive the most attention is Jonah. Amos and Hosea receive a fair amount of attention
as well.
In the New Testament, Philemon is not
ignored. I’ve actually heard several
messages preached from this one chapter book.
I don’t believe that I have ever heard a minister mention the fact
though that Paul violates a command from the Old Testament in sending Onesimus
back to his master. We will study more
about that later.
While these little books may be shorter
than many other books in the canon of Scripture, each one of them has a
powerful and timely message for Christians living in the 21st
century.
This book is my attempt to explore these
little and often overlooked books of Holy Scripture and discern afresh what
they can teach us today. The goal of this book is to explore a little about the
general nature of each book and discuss what we know about that book’s
authorship. We will then examine what
each book can teach us today.
It is my hope and prayer that the Lord
will use my writing to bring honor and glory to His most Holy name. By studying these little books with me, I
pray that you would grow in your love for the Lord and for His Word. May this then lead you to further study in
the familiar and unfamiliar pages of the Bible.
Chapter One – Obadiah
Obadiah has the distinction of being the
shortest book in the Old Testament. The
entirety of the book centers around a single theme, and that theme is that the
judgment of God is destined to come upon the nation of Edom and the Edomites. Before we deal with the specifics of the book
of Obadiah, let’s look at the authorship of the book and the time period when
the book may have been written.
There are several different people named
Obadiah listed in the Bible. Most of the
people named Obadiah are mentioned in genealogies or lists of men who were
tasked with different assignments.
The most prominent man named Obadiah
mentioned in Scripture is the Obadiah whose story we read in I Kings 18. This Obadiah was in charge of King Ahab’s
household affairs. Unlike the evil King
Ahab, Obadiah was a man who feared the Lord, and he attempted to do all that
the Lord required.
When Ahab and Jezebel sought to destroy
all the prophets who remained faithful to the Lord, Obadiah defied the royal
couple and hid the prophets in two separate groups in caves. He brought them food and water until the threat
from Ahab and Jezebel passed.
When the drought in Israel predicted by
the great prophet Elijah was at its most intense, Ahab tasked Obadiah to find
water for the royal horses. While
searching, Obadiah came upon Elijah.
Elijah told Obadiah that he wished to speak to the king. Obadiah relayed the prophet’s message
faithfully.
While this Obadiah of Scripture was
certainly an honorable man who served the Lord in a difficult situation, this
Obadiah is not the author of the book of Obadiah. The book of Obadiah speaks about events that
occurred during the Babylonian conquest of Israel in and around 586 BC. Therefore, the book must have been written
subsequent to this event.
The Obadiah who wrote the book that bears
his name does not seem to be mentioned anywhere else in the Word of God. The book was most likely written by a prophet
who was active in the ministry during the time surrounding the Babylonian
Captivity.
One thing that we can be certain of is
that this Obadiah was a faithful servant of the Lord. He received a vision from the Lord, and
Obadiah faithfully recorded the message given to him by God.
As we will see shortly, Obadiah’s prophecy
relates in its entirety to the nation of Edom.
With this in mind, let us see what the Bible has to say to us about
Edom.
First of all, Edom receives its name from
a descendant of Esau. Esau sold his
birthright and was tricked out of Isaac’s blessing by Jacob. Jacob’s name would be changed to Israel by
the Lord, and Jacob’s sons would go on to give their names to the twelve tribes
of Israel.
On the other hand, Esau would go on to
reconcile with his brother. Esau’s
descendants would become the Edomites, and they would rise to become a kingdom
of their own. Throughout their
histories, Israel and Edom would be in conflict just as the two brothers were
in conflict with one another.
The bad blood between Edom and Israel is
exemplified during the time Moses was leading the people out of Egyptian
bondage, through the desert and into the Promised Land. The shortest route into the Promised Land
would have been through the land of Edom.
Numbers 20 recounts the details of what
happened when the Israelites encountered the Edomites. Moses asked the ruler of Edom if his people
could travel through Edom into the Promised Land. The ruler of Edom flat out refused to allow it. In fact, the Edomites came out against the
children of Israel with their armed forces.
The Israelites turned aside and went along a different and longer route.
During the time of the Kings, Edom and
Israel would be at war. Saul and David
both fought battles with Edom. David
would bring the land under subjection, and Edom would remain a vassal of Judah
when the Kingdom divided after the death of David’s son Solomon.
Edom would become an independent nation
again. When Jehoram became king, Edom
rebelled. The king tried to put down the
rebellion, but he was unsuccessful. As
II Kings 8:23 states, “To this day, Edom has been in rebellion against Judah.” At
the time of the siege of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, the Edomites would join
with the Babylonians and participate in harassing the people of Israel.
Eventually, Edom would cease to be a
nation. The region of Edom would become
home to a people know as the Nabateans.
The Nabateans were traders and great architects. Their capital city of Petra is a wonder, and
it draws tourists to Jordan from around the world.
With that information about the place of
Edom in the Bible and in the historical record, let us delve into the book of
Obadiah and see what God would have us learn today from this small book of
prophecy.
For our purposes of study, I want to
divide the book of Obadiah into three sections with three lessons that we can
learn. First of all, verses 1-9 deal
with the issue of pride and trusting in our own strength and
resourcefulness. Verses 10-14 teach us
not to look with pleasure on someone else’s misfortune. Lastly, verses 15-21 teach us that what we
sow is what we will eventually reap.
Let’s look at these three lessons in more detail.
Even though the nation of Edom was tiny,
the people were filled with pride and boasting.
They felt as if their mountain kingdom was an impregnable fortress in
spite of military defeats in the past. Obadiah
said they lived in the cliffs of and made their homes in the high places. As people with military knowledge know,
mountain terrain makes for extremely difficult fighting conditions.
Obadiah prophesied that in spite of the
Edomites mountainous fortress, they would be defeated and cease to be a
nation. Just as God said through
Obadiah, Edom was defeated, and the Edomites are no more.
Many of us have an attitude that is very
similar to what was expressed by the people of Edom. We are filled with pride and boasting. We often place our trust and our confidence
in life in everyone and everything except in the Almighty God.
I found this happening in my own life at
one time. I had acquired some money from
my investments as well as a small inheritance.
I thought I was set. A great deal
of my confidence was placed in my material possessions. What happened? A Great Recession happened. In just a few short weeks, my stock holdings,
which were largely in banks and financials, were nearly wiped out. I went through one of the most depressed
periods of my life. I needed to find
work, but I wasn’t able to find a job for a long, long time. To top it all off, I was diagnosed with a
chronic health condition.
I was down and out and almost done. I soon realized that all of my confidence had
to be in the Lord Jesus. Everything in
this world is temporary and it is passing away.
Everything and everyone changes in this life except for Jesus Christ who
is the same yesterday, today and forever.
The Lord Jesus saw me through the bad
times, and I am slowly emerging from a
dark tunnel. I learned not to rely on
myself or anything in this world. My
confidence, help and sustenance is to be found in Jesus only.
There are many ways of trusting in the
self and in being lifted up with pride.
It can happen on both an individual and on a national level.
On an individual level, a prideful person
may place their hope in wealth, fame, career or in their own abilities. This is the basis of their life, and they
think more highly of themselves than they ought to think.
In the Bible, pride is referred to as an
abomination. Proverbs 16:8 states that
pride comes before destruction. The Lord
Jesus tells us in Mark 7 that pride is among a number of different evils that
come from within the heart of a person and lead to a person’s corruption. In
the epistle of I John, the apostle states in 2:16 that the pride of life is an
aspect of loving the world more than
loving God.
All individuals and nations mentioned in
the Bible that were elevated with pride were eventually brought low. Let me give you just two examples.
In Daniel chapter 4, we read about the
powerful Babylonian king named Nebuchadnezzar.
He thought that he was great, and he boasted of all that he had done and
all that he possessed. However,
Nebuchadnezzar was brought to the place where he wandered around like a wild
animal.
As far as nations are concerned, look no
farther than the Roman Empire. This was
once one of the mightiest empires on the face of the earth. The Caesar’s of Rome declared themselves to
be Lord and demanded to be worshipped as gods.
The Roman Empire is no more, and their might is now just a subject of
study for historians.
James 4:16 sums it up by saying that, “God
opposes the proud, but He gives grace to the humble.” As followers of the Lord Jesus, we must look
to Him as our ultimate example of humility.
The Apostle Paul expresses the subject of humility extraordinarily well
in Philippians 2:5-11 which states, “Have this mind among yourselves, which is
yours in Christ Jesus, who though He was in the form of God, did not consider
equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the
form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled
Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”
Now for our second lesson from the book of
Obadiah. The Lord said in Obadiah 12,
“Do not gloat over the day of your brother in the day of misfortune.” The people of Edom rejoiced to see of people
of Israel defeated by the Babylonians.
In fact, they joined with the Babylonians in the time of plunder. God did not like this behavior one bit.
As followers of the Lord, we should
rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.(Romans 12:15) Even when someone who has been mean to us or
someone who betrayed us gets their comeuppance we should not gloat and receive
some type of satisfaction from the news of
someone’s downfall and misfortune.
Christ has called us to be people who
express true love in imitation of the love expressed by Jesus. In his great chapter on love found in I
Corinthians 13, Paul says that true love is not arrogant or rude. True love is not resentful of others, and
does not rejoice in any type of wrongdoing.
When those who are our enemies have
problems, we are to show them love.
Jesus says in the Sermon one the Mount that we are to “Love you enemies,
and pray for those who persecute you.” (Matthew 5:44)
And now for our third lesson from
Obadiah. Obadiah teaches the principle
that you will reap whatever it is that you sow.
Obadiah 15 says, “For the day of the Lord is near upon all nations. As you have done, it shall be done to
you. Your deeds shall return on your own
heads.”
This principle is so true in life. But, I want to speak about this at the
ultimate level. If a person lives his
life for the temporal things of this world that are passing away, he will
ultimately achieve nothing. Everything
that is in this world is passing away.
Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount that
we should lay up treasures in heaven and not lay up treasures for ourselves on
this earth. Jesus asked the questions
“What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and yet loses his own
soul? What can a man give in exchange
for his soul?” That which is eternal is what we should strive for. Then we will reap an eternal reward.
For a while, I had the wrong
perspective. With the assistance of the
indwelling Holy Spirit, I want to focus my life in spreading the message of the
love of Jesus.
Jesus told a great story that shows the
difference in the world’s thinking about success and an eternal perspective of
what constitutes success. Jesus said that there was a rich man that had
everything that money could buy. He was
successful in the terms of this world’s system.
Lying outside the gate of this rich man
was a poor man named Lazarus. He was
covered in sores, and the dogs who licked his sores were his only companions. This world didn’t think much of him. His life seemed like a waste.
Both men died. The rich man who laid up treasure for himself
on earth went to Hades and eternal torment.
Lazarus, who was rich in the eternal things of God, went to Abraham’s
Bosom.
Build your life and eternity on the solid
rock of Jesus. In eternity, you will not
suffer loss.
There is probably much more that we could
say and learn from Obadiah. But, let us
now move on to see what the little book of Haggai has to teach us.
Chapter Two – Haggai
The next of the
little books that we will turn our attention to is the prophetic book known as
Haggai. While Haggai actually contains two
chapters, it is still a little book by Biblical standards. Like the other little books that we will
study, Haggai has an important message for us today.
Let’s start with a little bit of
historical background surrounding the events that are recorded in this
book. In 586 BC, the people of the
nation of Judah were carried off into captivity by the Babylonians. This was predicted by the prophet
Jeremiah. Readers can study more about
this by reading the book of Jeremiah.
Jeremiah is one of the outstanding characters in the Old Testament, and
there is much to learn from the way that he conducted his life.
Because the people had rebelled against
God and decided to worship idols instead of the True and Living God, the Lord
allowed the Babylonians to conquer Judah.
One of those taken into captivity was Daniel. In spite of being a young man in a strange
land, Daniel throughout his life remained faithful to the Lord. Ezekiel the prophet was also taken away
during the Babylonian invasion. I urge
you all to read and study Daniel and Ezekiel in the Old Testament.
After a period of several years, the
Babylonians were defeated by the Medo-Persian Empire. During the reign of the Persian king Cyrus,
the Jewish people were allowed to return to their own land in order to rebuild
something of their former lives. This is
referred to in Biblical history as the Post-Exilic Period.
The historical books of Ezra and Nehemiah
provide great information about the return of the people to the land of
Israel. Nehemiah was in charge of
rebuilding the walls of the city of Jerusalem, and Ezra helped to keep the
people on the path of faithfully following the way of the Lord.
One thing that I find especially
interesting is the fact that the period of captivity in Babylon ended the
people’s practice of following other gods.
Israel committed other sins, but the nation did not wholesale turn to
the gods of the nations that surrounded them again.
Part of Israel’s restoration was the
rebuilding of the nation’s religious life.
When Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem, they
completely and utterly destroyed the Temple that Solomon built. They carried away all the precious objects
from the Temple back to their own kingdom.
When the people returned to Jerusalem, they set about to rebuild the
Temple that had once stood so gloriously in the midst of the city. The people were led by a man named Zerubbabel
who was a member of the House of David.
A man by the name of Joshua served the
high priest. He was specifically
consecrated by God to serve in this role.
The consecration of Joshua the High Priest is recorded in the book of
Zechariah the prophet.
As I mentioned, the people began to
rebuild their lives in Jerusalem. They
cleared away all of the rubble and debris from the Temple Mount, but that is as
far as things went. The people became
distracted from the work on the Temple, and they started building houses for themselves
and pursuing their own business interests.
Into this situation, God raised up the prophets Haggai, Zechariah and
Malachi to speak to the people.
Just on a side note, Zechariah is an
extremely interesting book to study. In
contains prophecies concerning the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus, and
there are prophecies in the book related to the Lord’s Second Coming. Malachi is concerned with getting the people
to remember that God loves them, and that God’s people should strive to give
their best unto the Lord.
Back
to Haggai. We don’t know much about the
personal history of Haggai. He pretty
much just shows up on the scene, although his presence and ministry is recorded
in the book of Ezra.
Haggai’s name means festive. He began his prophetic ministry to the people
in the second year of the reign of King Darius on the first day of the sixth
month. In this prophecy, we will see
that the Lord had grown tired of people focusing on their own needs and
concerns while they were neglecting the things of God such as rebuilding the
Temple.
In his short period of ministry, Haggai
would bring a message of both rebuke and encouragement. He sought to motivate the people to return to
the work of the Lord.
In Haggai 1:3, the prophet begins His word
to the people by stating, “Is it time for you yourselves to be living in your
paneled houses while this house remains in ruin?” In verse 7 the Lord would command the people
to go into the mountains to obtain the timbers needed to begin construction on
the Lord’s House.
Haggai preached to the people and Governor
Zerubbabel for 23 days. On the 24th
day of the month, the people began to work.
Haggai gave an encouraging word from the Lord in 1:11. The Lord said to His people, “I am with
you.” This statement stirred the hearts
of the leader and his people to rise up and build a new Temple for the honor
and glory of God.
There is much that we can learn and apply
to our lives from Haggai chapter 1. I
believe that the first important message that we can learn from Haggai is that
those of us who are followers of the Lord need to put Him first in our lives. The
people of Haggai’s day had neglected God and doing the things that God wanted
them to do. They didn’t seem to have the
time to repair the Temple, yet they found the time to repair their own homes
and do the things that they wanted to do.
There is no place in the text that states that the people stopped
believing in the Lord, they just couldn’t be bothered with following the
commandments of the Lord or putting the things of the Lord first in their
lives.
Two passages from the New Testament come
to mind when I think about the people of Haggai’s time. I recall the passage from Revelation 2:4 that
states, “Nevertheless, I have this against you, that you have left your first
love.” Jesus spoke these words to the
people of the church at Ephesus. The
people at this church were living for the Lord, but they were not following Him
with all of their hearts.
The second passage that comes to mind is
from the words of Jesus recorded in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus said to seek the kingdom of God and His
righteousness first, and all of these other things would be added unto you.
So, how does all of this apply to us? First of all, I believe the many of us our
becoming more concerned about ourselves and we are neglecting the things of
God. I believe that this applies in two
important areas, namely giving and fulfilling the Great Commission.
Giving and the tithe are usually
controversial subjects, but that doesn’t mean that we should shy away from
them. On the contrary, it is required of
a minister to preach and proclaim the whole counsel of God.
Because of the way that many media preachers
constantly beg for money and lay a guilt trip on people, the concept of tithing
has gotten something of a bad rap.
However, the tithe is most certainly Scriptural, and Jesus our Lord
speaks about giving the tithe.
Giving in the church has become very lax
as far as the tithe is concerned. Some
polls have stated that the average level of giving among church members is
around 2 to 3 percent. This is a far cry
from the tithe.
Let’s just look at a few of the Scriptures
that teach about tithing. The first
mention of tithing is found in Genesis 14:20 when Abraham gave King Melchizedek
10 percent of the spoils after the defeat of the kings of the valley.
The principle of the tithe was codified in
the Law of Moses. We see this in Deuteronomy
14:22 and 26:12.
One of the most startling verses about the
tithe is found in Malachi 3:10. God said
that the people had robbed Him because they had not brought the tithe into the
storehouse of the Temple.
The Lord Jesus Himself spoke about the
tithe. Matthew 23 records the woes that
Jesus pronounced upon the Pharisees and religious leaders of His day. Jesus states in Matthew 23:23, “Woe to you
scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For
you tithe of mint and anise and cumin and have neglected the weightier matters
of the law: justice and mercy and
faith. These you ought to have done without
leaving the others undone.” In other
words, do acts of justice, mercy and kindness, and give the tithe.
What does all this have to do with Haggai? Well, we often focus on our own needs, and we
don’t give unto the Lord what belongs to Him.
One way this is manifest is through giving. When we keep back what should rightfully go
to the Lord and use it for ourselves, we are acting in the same manner as those
in Haggai’s time.
We need to give to the Lord. Now, I am not promising as the faith teachers
do that if you give you’ll get something in return. I don’t believe in that sort of thing. What I am saying is that the giving of our
resources is an important area of demonstration of our love for the Lord just
like working on the Temple was in Haggai’s day.
Now, a second area where I think that
Haggai has application is regarding how we are fulfilling what we have been
called by the Lord to do in the Great Commission. Jesus has called us to go into the world and
tell others of His message of love and forgiveness. However, much of this world remains
unreached. Seventy percent of the people
on earth right now are not Christians of any kind.
Jesus spoke about the need for
evangelization in John 4:35. He said
that the fields were white unto harvest, but the laborers were few. In Matthew 28:19-20 and in Acts 1:8, Jesus
instructs His followers to go unto the uttermost parts of the earth and make
disciples. Matthew 24:14 says, “And this
Gospel of the Kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all,
and then the end will come.”
The majority of people sitting in church
pews today have not had the experience of leading one soul to faith in Jesus
Christ. Here in the United States where
I live, the number of Christians continues to decline.
We need all Christians to follow the Great
Commission of Jesus and spread His message around the world. It will take our time, talent and resources
in missions to see people come to the Lord.
Just as the exiles had the mission of rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem
under Nehemiah and rebuilding the Temple, we have a mission of taking the Good
News to the lost of this world.
On this point, I want to say a few
words. Putting the Lord first in our
lives can also have a very personal meaning.
I believe that the Lord calls each of us to minister for Him in this
world in some way. It is up to us to
follow the Lord’s will for our lives or to go our own way. We can follow the Lord and be yielded to His
will, or we can be like the prophet Jonah and attempt to go 180 degrees from
the way the Lord has shown us to go.
You can attempt to go your own way in your
life, but you will never find true happiness and contentment unless you put
Jesus first. Until Jesus is the Lord of
every aspect of your life, you cannot know true joy and peace.
The prophet Haggai gave important words of
encouragement to the people after he told them that God wanted them to get back
to work. Haggai 2:4 states, “Yet now be
strong Zerubbabel, says the Lord, and be strong, Joshua son of Jehozidak, the
high priest, and be strong, all of you people of the land says the Lord, and
work, for I am with you says the Lord of hosts.”
The Lord had assigned the people a task,
and He would be with them to strengthen them in order to accomplish His
will. With the Lord on their side, the
people were able to complete the work on the Temple.
This same principle holds true in our
time. If the Lord Jesus gives you a task
to complete or a commandment to follow, He will be with you and will provide
the awareness of His presence as you go about His work in obedience. Also, if
Jesus calls you to a specific ministry, He will help you do whatsoever it is
that He has specifically called you to do.
In a general sense, we as believers in
Jesus can take comfort from these words of Jesus Himself. Jesus said that He would never leave us and
that He would never forsake us. He said
that He would be with us to the end of the age.
The Lord is with us. Through the indwelling power of the Holy
Spirit, the Lord leads us through the difficulties of this life, and He walks
alongside of us to provide the comfort of His presence and of His still, small
voice speaking into our hearts to let us know the true peace that only He can
provide.
I would like to speak to you for a few
moments about how important the presence of the Lord has been in my life. A few years ago, I faced four hard blows in my
life right in a row. First, my Mother
suffered a debilitating stroke. My Dad
and I had to take care of her 24 hours a day for over five years until she
passed away. Four months after my Mom
died, my Dad passed away. About three months
later, I faced a great financial setback from which I have yet to fully recover. Then, on top of that, I had a series of
health problems.
Let me tell you, it was hard coping with
all this hitting me one right after the other.
The only way that I was able to make it through these difficulties was
due to the fact that I knew without a shadow of a doubt that Jesus was with me.
Through it all, He has been the rock down deep in my soul not letting me slip
down to the very depths of depression.
If
you are going through a bad time, please take comfort from the words of the
Lord spoken through the prophet Haggai.
Jesus is always with us. One day,
we will be with Him in person, and we will spend all of eternity with Him. What a great day that will be.
Now we turn to the third important lesson
that we can learn from the book of Haggai.
When the people heard the word of the Lord through Haggai, they obeyed
the word given to them. This is an
important component of the Christian life.
Jesus told His disciples that they would be considered His friends if
they obeyed His commandments. Friendship
and fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ requires living in obedience to the
teachings and commandments of Jesus.
I personally do not understand how someone
can be a Christian if they are not willing to be obedient to the Lord. I know that it wouldn’t work for me.
There is a belief that is popular among
many Christians that one can accept Jesus as Savior without accepting Jesus as
the Lord of one’s life. From the way
that I read the Bible, being a Christian means following Jesus. It means making Jesus Lord and obeying
Him. It means following wherever He
leads.
Much
of what the Lord requires of us is recorded in the pages of the Bible. However, as I mentioned, I believe that the
Lord has a personal calling that He often places on our lives. We will not find true happiness in life
unless we follow what God has called us to do.
There is one final thing that I want to
focus on from Haggai. The last section
of the book deals with how God will use the leader Zerubabbel. God made a promise to David that someone from
the line of David would always and forever rule over the house of Israel. Zerubbabel was part of this fulfillment, but
he was not the ultimate fulfillment of the Davidic Covenant. The ultimate fulfillment of this covenant is
Jesus.
One day, Jesus will reign as King of Kings
and Lord of Lords. He will rule over
all, and all of the world will know peace and goodness and righteousness.
I find this passage from Haggai
encouraging because it shows me that God always keeps His promises. This is important because the Bible says in
Hebrews 13:8 that Jesus is the same, yesterday, today and forever. I can count on this because God has shown in
history that He does whatsoever He says.
Jesus made two promises that I can have
confidence in that He will keep. Jesus
said that He is the resurrection and the life.
My parents and most of my friends who believed in Jesus have died. But, I do not have to grieve as those who
have no hope. Jesus will keep His
word. I know that my family and friends
are alive right now with Jesus in Heaven.
Jesus also promised that He has gone to
prepare a place for us. If we believe
and trust in Him, one day, we will be with Him where He is. I look forward to the day when I am with
Jesus my Lord and reunited with my friends and loved ones who are in Christ.
This ends our look at the teachings of the
Lord from the book of Haggai. Let us now
turn our attention to the shortest of Paul’s epistles and see what we can learn
from Philemon.
Chapter
3 – Philemon
We now move out of the Old Testament
little books and turn our attention to the first of the little books that we
will study in the New Testament.
Philemon is a very short book, and it is one of the many letters written
by the Apostle Paul
Paul addressed this letter to Philemon,
hence the book’s name. Philemon is
essentially a letter that Paul writes to a man who has a church in his
house. Paul asks Philemon to forgive and
accept back a runaway slave by the name of Onesimus. Onesimus had left his master and had somehow
made the acquaintance of Paul. Over the
course of time, Onesimus was converted to the faith and became a follower of
Jesus Christ. Onesimus was now a brother
in the faith to not just Paul, but he was now a brother in the faith to
Philemon as well.
Let me state at this point that I find the
book of Philemon to be a troubling book.
Although it is short, it is filled with controversy. I am not going to shy away from this. I believe that all of the Bible is to be
interpreted through the revelation of Jesus Christ who is the word made flesh
who dwelled among us. With that in mind,
we will look at Philemon and see if we can understand it and apply it to our
lives.
Before we get into that, we need to
explore some of the background that will make the book easier to understand in
its context.
Slavery in the Roman world, and in the
entire ancient world, was widely practiced.
In the Roman world, there were more slaves than free people. Slaves held no rights whatsoever.
Some slaves were used as laborers in mines
while others were used as field hands or manual laborers. Many slaves were used as household help. Slaves were often highly educated people
including physicians and writers. Aesop
and Epictetus are two examples among many.
Rome had experienced a number of slave
uprisings most notable being the slave revolt led by Spartacus. Rome feared slave revolts and the disruption
of the social order. Any system or
belief that advocated an end to slavery would not be tolerated within the Roman
Empire.
With that in mind, let us get into some of
the problems we find in Philemon. I’m
sure that I don’t have to tell you that the whole issue of slavery is a major
issue in defending the Bible and Christianity.
As much as I would like it not to be the case, the Bible by no means
outright condemns the practice of slavery.
Paul will tell us that both the slave and the free man are brothers in
Christ, but nowhere will you find that he advocates the abolition of slavery. He does say in I Timothy 1:10 that slave
traders will not inherit the kingdom of God. Other passages of Scripture speak
about slaves being obedient to and subject to their masters.
Let me state as clearly as I can. Slavery is wrong. There is no way someone can morally justify
the owing of another human being. So
what are we to do with the issue of slavery and the Bible?
First of all, the Bible was written in a
particular place and time. When the Old
Testament was written, all of the nations that surrounded Israel practiced
slavery in some form. When the laws
concerning the owning of slaves were given in the Pentateuch, they reflected
the times, yet at the same time, they were a mitigation of the slavery
practices of the surrounding cultures.
In other words, I think, God was
accommodating things to what people could understand and practice at the
time. I think we see this in the
entirety of the Bible as there appears to be what I would call an evolving
moral code in the Bible.
Let
me give you an example of this in another situation. When we first encounter marriage
relationships in the Bible, there seems to be little standard as to whom people
were allowed to marry. For instance,
Abraham was married to his sister, and Jacob had two sisters as wives at the
same time. Later, we will see that both
of these practices are condemned in the law.
Also, many people in the Bible times had
multiple wives as well as concubines.
When we get to the New Testament, Jesus makes it clear that God’s
original intent was for one man to be married to one woman for life. Paul will state in Timothy and Titus that one
of the requirements to be a leader in the church is that a man is to be the
husband of one wife.
The Sermon on the Mount which is the core
teaching of Jesus is one of the best examples demonstrating a changing ethic
found in the Bible. The Old Testament
states that justice is encapsulated in the principle of an eye for an eye and a
tooth for a tooth. Jesus said that this
is not to be the case. The Old Testament
mandated capital punishment while Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount is
the opposite. In the Old Testament,
there are laws given about swearing an oath.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says that we are not to take an
oath. Our words are to be yes, yes and
no, no.
I will provide one further example from
the teaching of Jesus. The issue of
divorce was a hot topic of debate in Jesus’ day. The Pharisee’s and religious leaders brought
Jesus into the debate by asking Him when it was permissible for a man to
divorce his wife.
According to the law given by Moses, a man
was allowed to divorce his wife by giving her a certificate of divorcement if
he found something displeasing in her.
Jesus said that this was not the right way. Jesus said that divorce was only allowed on
the basis of marital unfaithfulness.
Jesus statement concerning this matter shocked the religious leaders and
Jesus’ own disciples as well.
Here is one principle that we need to
understand when looking at slavery or any other issue in the Bible. Jesus is the ultimate and final
revelation. He is the Word made flesh
who dwelled among us. We are to look to
Him in order to know what it is that we are supposed to do. So with that in mind, what did Jesus have to
say about slavery?
Jesus did use examples of the master
slave relationship when providing illustrations for His teachings. This was by no means condoning slavery. This was simply using an illustration from
something that people of that time would readily be able to comprehend and
understand.
While Jesus never advocated for abolition
of slavery, there are several teachings from Jesus that I believe clearly
demonstrate that He was opposed to slavery.
First of all, Jesus said that the second greatest commandment was that
we were to love our neighbors as ourselves.
If we love someone, how can we enslave them?
Furthermore, Jesus stated in the Golden
Rule that we are to do unto others as we would have done unto us. We certainly wouldn’t want to be enslaved;
therefore we shouldn’t do it to others.
Jesus would also stated that those who
were his true followers were to be the servants of all. They were to take the lowest place and not
lord their authority and dominance over any other person.
With this in mind, I believe that Jesus
shows us that slavery is wrong. So, why
do other passages in the New Testament including what we see in Philemon not
condemn the practice? To that I will
respond by saying, Jesus is the Word.
Look to Him. He is the only
infallible Word of God.
So, now that I have tried to give my
perspective on slavery and the Bible, we next have to approach another thorny
issue in the book of Philemon. Paul will
actually return Onesimus to Philemon. This is contrary to what is taught in
Deuteronomy 23:15. What are we to make
of this?
Some believe that since Onesimus was not a
Hebrew slave that the injunction given in Deuteronomy does not apply. Others believe that Onesimus voluntarily
decided to go back thus invalidating any violation of Deuteronomy 23. I believe that this second theory is probably
most correct if Paul did not try to persuade Onesimus to return. We are not told about this in the text.
As I have already stated, Jesus is the
Word and the interpretive framework of the entire Bible. We must look to Him and Him only for the
correct interpretation and application of other areas of the Bible.
With that said, let us look into what I
believe is the great principle and teaching that is contained in the book of
Philemon. While it is not stated right
out, Paul’s willingness to have any debt owed by Onesimus laid to his own
account is an example of how our sin debt was laid to the account of Jesus.
We as sinners clearly owed a great debt to
God because we had violated his holy law.
As it says in Romans, “All have sinned and come short of the glory of
God.”
Jesus came into this world so that he
could pay our sin debt that we could never pay.
There is no amount of good deeds that we as sinners could ever do to
merit God’s favor.
Jesus lived a perfect, holy and sinless
life. Because of this, He could be the
spotless Lamb of God who could take away the sins of the world. On the cross, our sins were laid upon Jesus
Christ. He paid the penalty for our sins
which is death. Because Jesus took about
Himself our sins and died in our place, if we put our faith and trust in the
finished work of Christ on the cross, we can have our sins washed away.
Jesus told two stories about sin and debt
in the Gospels. He told the parable of
the two debtors to Peter when instructing him about the principle of
forgiveness, and Jesus told a story about two debtors when He was making a
point to a Pharisee in regard to the incident when a sinful woman came and
wiped Jesus’ feet with her hair.
As I said previously, I find Philemon to
be a difficult book, but it does contain within it a good example of how Jesus
paid a debt that we could not pay.
Now, let us move on and see what we can
learn from the little book of II John.
Chapter 4 – II John
Now that we have fleshed out the issues
from the book of Philemon, it is time to turn our attention to the epistle of
II John. This book is the smallest book
in the New Testament.
Currently, there are two prevalent
theories as to the authorship of II John.
Almost all of the more conservative Bible scholars that I am familiar
with hold to the view that the Apostle John is the author of II John. Another prevalent view believes that the
Apostle John was not the author. This
group holds the view that an elder by the name of John who was a leader in the
church at Ephesus was the author of not only II John but was the author of III
John and Revelation as well.
This later version is given credence due
to the fact that in II John, the author identifies himself by the title of
elder and does not refer to himself as an apostle. To me, this seems scant evidence to base the
idea of non-apostolic authorship upon.
I believe that the deciding factor in
determining who was the author of II and III John comes from church
history. Irenaeus was a church father
who was a student of Polycarp. Polycarp
knew the Apostle John personally. As far
as Irenaeus was concerned in his writings, John the Apostle wrote both II and
III John. Many other church fathers
concurred with this opinion.
Those who study II John should also note
another debate among Bible scholars.
This debate revolves around to whom the book was written.
In the opening verse, John states that he
is writing to the elect lady and her children whom he loves in the truth. Just who is this elect lady John is
addressing?
Some Biblical scholars hold to the idea
that John was writing to a woman that he knew who may have had a church that
was meeting in her home. This would make
II John a very personal letter along the lines of Philemon which was also
written to an individual.
The majority of Bible commentaries hold to
a second view, and this is the view that I find myself to be in agreement
with. In this view, John’s address to
the elect lady and her children is a figurative way of addressing a local
church and its members. This would be in keeping with the idea that the church
is the Body of Christ. This particular
viewpoint would also make sense in light of the ending of the epistle when John
speaks about greeting the elect lady’s sister.
Whichever view one holds in this matter,
the fact remains that II John is a very important work that has some important
messages for us to focus on in the 21st century.
One of the first things that strikes me in
II John is John’s continuing pastoral concern.
It seems to me that John was instrumental in founding the church to
which II John is written. I imagine that
he worked very hard in establishing this community of believers before moving
on to bring the message of Jesus to others.
John was glad to hear good reports
regarding his former congregation. I
can’t imagine much worse than starting a church, seeing it grow and mature and
then find out a few years after you’ve left that the congregation is defunct or
just barely hanging on to its existence.
It would also be bad to find out that a congregation you had invested so
much energy in had given up the teaching of sound doctrine and become
non-effective in the promotion of the true faith. John was happy that none of this was the case
with the church that he had helped to build.
The first major theme that John addresses
in II John is the importance of love.
Those of you familiar with I John will recognize the importance the
theme of love is given in that epistle.
John says in verse 4 of II John, “And now I ask you lady, not as writing
to you a new commandment, but the one which we have had from the beginning,
that we love one another.” This is what
John wanted for those he taught more than anything. He wanted them to walk in love and to live in
love. The reason being is that this is
the same commandment that John received from Jesus when the Lord taught His
disciples during the Upper Room Discourse.
Jesus said in John 15:12, “This is my
commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.” Jesus would also state that the way that
people in the world would know that we are His disciples is by the love that
His followers would demonstrate towards one another.
Love is important because Jesus’ ministry
is based upon love. The whole reason
that Jesus came to this earth is because He loved us so much. Because of His great love for us, He was
willing to lay down His life on the cross bearing our sins in His body on that
tree. He loved us enough to show us the
proper path to follow and the right way to live in this world. Since Jesus demonstrated such great love for
us, He expects us to show his love to others.
We are not called to love just our friends, family and our brothers and
sisters in Christ. We are called to love
everyone so that they might see Jesus and receive the life and forgiveness that
He offers to all who will believe in Him.
Love for one another is the way in which
others will be drawn to the message of Jesus.
When believers do not act out of love for each other, it causes a bad
testimony to be created, and people are not then attracted to learn more of the
message we have to share about the Lord Jesus.
John makes it clear in his first epistle
that if we can’t love our brothers and sisters who we can see, how will we be
able to love God whom we cannot see. The
people in Antioch were first called Christians the Bible says because of the
great love that they had for one another.
The reason that following the love
commandment is of such vital importance is because of the fact that Jesus was
all about love. When I think of Jesus and
His ministry on this earth, love is the first thing that comes into my
mind. Jesus loved people and
demonstrated great compassion for those whom society and the religious establishment
rejected. Jesus’ love ultimately led him
to Calvary where out of love He sacrificed His life to redeem us from our sins.
So, when we act in love, we are acting
like Jesus. We are showing to the world
who our Lord really and truly is.
The next theme dealt with in II John is
the issue of false doctrine in the church.
John says in verse 7 that many deceivers who do not acknowledge Jesus
Christ as coming in the flesh have gone out into the world. According to John, these people possess the
spirit of antichrist because they are opposed to sound doctrine.
In John’s day, there were some who taught
that Jesus did not have an actual physical body. Therefore, Jesus didn’t really die on the
cross since He wasn’t really in the flesh.
Scripture clearly states that this is a false belief. John wanted to make sure that this type of
false teaching did not enter the churches in which he had a part.
Just as in John’s day, there are a number
of false teachings trying to make their way into the church. One of the major false teachings about Jesus
denies the divinity of Jesus. Jesus in
honored as a good man, good teacher and a prophet, but He is not honored as the
God of the universe come in human form.
Any teacher who denies the divinity of Jesus should be avoided in
keeping with the advice given by John in this epistle.
John goes so far as to state in verse 10
and 11 that hospitality should not be afforded to those who deny the essential
doctrines surrounding the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Doctrine matters. What a person believes about Jesus and what
His life, death and resurrection has accomplished is crucial for one’s eternal
destiny. Churches and their pastors must
be on guard against false belief.
One of the best ways to guard against
false teaching is to be firmly established in the truth. Begin by reading the Word so that you will
not be led astray. If you have never read through the entire Bible, I would
strongly urge you to do so. Pastors need to systematically teach the Word,
especially the words of Jesus. Believers
need to attend churches where the Word of the Lord is taught and proclaimed.
II John may be a very small book, but the
messages that it contains are very relevant for us today. Let’s now see what III John has to teach us.
Chapter 5 – III John
We now move on the John’s third epistle
and examine what this work has to teach us.
As part of our study of III John, we will examine one of the most
misused verses of Scripture which is found in this short epistle.
By way of introduction, let us set up III
John. Like the other two epistles of
John which precede it, III John’s author has been traditionally held to be the
Apostle John. As with II John, there is
a strain of thought that holds to the idea that an elder named John, and not
the Apostle, penned this letter. As with
II John, it is my belief, and the consensus from church history, that John the
disciple of the Lord Jesus wrote III John.
As to when it was written, we are not
entirely certain. Some believe that of
all the New Testaments letters, this may be the one that was written last. It was most likely written in the 90s AD when
John was a very elderly man.
Unlike II John, the audience for III John
is very evident. III John was written to
a man named Gaius. There are a few men
with this name found in the New Testament.
However, Gaius was a very common name in the Roman world. This Gaius is probably not one of the others
with that name found in the New Testament.
The Gaius to whom John addressed III John
is some type of leader in the church that John at one time pastored and may
have founded. This Gaius was a man who
showed great hospitality to the travelling ministers who came to share the message
of Jesus from church to church. John
commends Gaius’ acts of hospitality, but some in Gaius’ congregation weren’t
happy with what he was doing.
Part of the reason that III John was
written was to encourage Gaius and speak well of those in the church who were
acting in a Christ-like manner.
Conversely, John also points out in this letter a person in the church
who acted contrary to the teachings of Jesus.
Diotrophes was intent on being the most
important person in the church to which III John was addressed. He wanted to be the sole leader and
teacher. This man did not want anyone
else speaking to his congregation. In
fact, he would not show any type of hospitality to those who were going around
to the different churches to teach. John
has harsh words for this man and his actions.
Just like the other small books of the
Bible that we have studied thus far, III John is extremely relevant to us
today. One aspect of III John that I
want to focus on directly is the greeting that John gives to Gaius at the
beginning of the epistle. This simple
greeting is used as a proof text by many of the faith and prosperity teachers
who twist this verse to mean something that was never in any way intended.
The verse in question in III John states,
“I would that you prosper and be in health even as your soul prospers.”
Now, the teaching of the faith teachers on
this verse proceeds this way. Since
Jesus makes our souls prosper, and He has given us all good things spiritually
through saving us and granting us eternal life, we have abundant soul
prosperity. So, we are to be in health
and prosperous just as our souls are.
That means that we should have perfect health and financial blessings as
long as we walk faithfully with the Lord.
Now, this is not what this verse is trying
to get across at all. The Bible clearly
does not teach that God wants us all to be rich and that if we follow the Lord
we will always be free from sickness and the other hardships of this current
life. There are many people in the Bible
and in the history of the church who faithfully followed the Lord and they had
terrible health, they were in poverty and they faced great challenges and
difficulties in life.
Let’s analyze the verse. What John is expressing is a simple greeting
to a friend. He is not trying to make
some kind of great doctrinal pronouncement.
John in his greeting is hoping that good things are happening in the
life of his friend Gaius. It would be
like saying this if we wrote a letter, “I hope this letter finds you well and
that all things are good in your life.”
To the issue of God desiring that everyone
who follows Him to be rich, this is not the teaching of the Scriptures. Some of those who served and worshipped God
did not experience financial prosperity in this world. The words found in Hebrews 11:36-39 are
helpful in addressing this matter. They
state, “Still others had trials of mockings and scourgings, yes and of chains
and imprisonments. They were stoned, and
they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and
goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented – of who the world is not
worthy. They wandered in deserts and
mountains, in dens and caves of the earth.
And all of these having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not
receive the promise.”
Another example is the Lord Jesus Christ
Himself. Once He said, “Foxes have holes
and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his
head.” When the Pharisees questioned
Jesus about paying taxes to Caesar, Jesus didn’t even have a coin on His
person; He had to ask someone to give Him a coin to use for an illustration.
Furthermore, in the Beatitudes as recorded
in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus said that those who are poor are numbered amongst the
blessed. The rich receive a
pronouncement of woe from the Lord Jesus.
This same sentiment is expressed by the Lord’s brother James in his
epistle.
I believe that this points out quite
clearly that God has not promised health and wealth to all who believe.
Also, let us touch upon the idea that
having enough faith will cause one to be healthy and wealthy. This has with it the corollary idea that if
you are not in good health and/or you are poor, you must have some sin in your
life or you lack the necessary faith to receive a blessing from the Lord.
This false teaching is clearly refuted by
the life of Job and the teachings of the Lord Jesus. Job was a righteous man, yet Job suffered
greatly. He lost his health and all of
his possessions. These trials did not
come upon Job because he lacked faith or he had sin in his life. Job was called upon to suffer in order to
demonstrate the greatness of the Lord and the futility of the plans and
purposes of the evil one.
Jesus had to confront this false teaching
during His earthly ministry. In John 9,
Jesus and His disciples come upon a man who is described as someone who was
blind from birth. The disciples asked
Jesus who sinned in order to cause this man to be born blind. They wondered if the man sinned or if his
parents had been the sinners. Jesus told
them that neither party’s sin had caused the man’s current state of
affairs.
This type of teaching causes many people
great spiritual harm. I will give you an
example from my own life. When I was
born, I was born with a congenital immune system disorder. It particularly affected my ability to fight
off respiratory infections. In the
seventh grade, I missed much of the school year due to multiple hospital
admissions.
The church that my family attended had the
false notion that if you faced a lot of sickness in your life, then there must
have some type of sin in your life. I
always felt condemned and looked down upon.
It took me many years to understand who Jesus really is and what a
correct view of God as the Heavenly Father looked like.
One day, when Jesus returns in power and
great glory, all sin, sickness, disease, war and death will be eliminated from
the earth. Now, let’s delve into what
the rest of III John has to teach us.
John commended Gaius for demonstrating
hospitality to others and John condemned Diotrophes for not having an
hospitable nature. As followers of
Jesus, we should show hospitality to others.
I believe that this means that we are to help those that are in need of
our help.
There is a great deal of hurting and
suffering in the world today. Many
people right in my own nation do not have enough to eat and they don’t have the
proper clothes to keep them warm during the winter. The problem of homelessness continues to
confront us here in the United States.
I thank the Lord for the fact that many
churches have started food pantries and clothing ministries to help those in
need. These are important ministries
that more and more churches need to become involved in.
There is so much that needs to be
done. The church of Jesus Christ has a
responsibility to step up and help those in this troubled world during these
difficult times which we are facing.
Those who are in the church should have
their needs met by those who are their brothers and sisters in the faith. If there are members of a congregation that
need assistance during a tough economic occurrence, the other members need to
come alongside and provide whatever help that they can for the brother or
sister in need. This is vital. It demonstrates to the world that we are
truly followers of Jesus Christ. The
world will know that we are Christians when they see the love that we have
toward one another which can only overflow to all those for whom Christ died.
Something else that is important for us to
learn from III John comes from the naming of three individuals in this short
epistle. John mentions Gaius,
Diotrophes, and Demetrius. Gaius and
Demetrius receive praise. Diotrophes
does not. What really stood out to me in
reading III John was the importance of having a good name spiritually. Just think about this, Gaius and Demetrius
have been recognized for their goodness in churches around the world now for
over 2000 years. Diotrophes is just
remembered for his surliness and lack of good behavior.
It should be our goal as followers of
Jesus to have a good name and a good reputation. We should be people of an upstanding
character that allows us to be effective witness of life in the Kingdom of
Heaven.
Jesus said that we are to do good
works. When we do what is good, those
who are not yet Christ’s will see our good works and give glory to the Lord who
is in Heaven.
I want to be remembered as someone who
tried to follow Jesus with all that he had.
I want to follow Jesus’ commandments, and it is my goal to try to be
more like Jesus every day. I hope that
this is the goal of every person who names Jesus as their Savior and Lord.
III John 11 tells us what the life of a
Christian should resemble. We should not
imitate what is evil but we should do good.
John says, “Anyone who does what is good is from God. Anyone who does evil has not seen God.”
When a person claims to have faith in
Jesus, that faith must be demonstrated by a life of good works. John speaks about this in I John, and Jesus’
brother James says the same thing very extensively in the epistle that bears
his name.
If someone says that they are a Christian,
but they are not doing good, it reflects a lack of possession of faith. Let us all be faithful followers of the Lord
Jesus who are doing as much good in the world as we possibly can so that we can
leave this world a little bit better than the way we found it.
As you can clearly see, for a small book,
III John has a lot to teach us. However,
of all the small books that we have studied, none compares with the amount of
spiritual teaching we will encounter in the book of Jude.
Chapter 6 – Jude
We now come to the final book in our study
of the Bible’s smallest books. Jude is a
book that is absolutely packed with interesting things to learn. Of all of the books that we have studied
together, I think that Jude may be the most interesting.
This little book has been a source of
controversy and intrigue for Bible scholars since the time of the early church.
Let’s begin with some background
information. This epistle was written to
a general audience of first century believers and is therefore referred to as
one of the general epistles. It claims
to have been written by Jude who is the brother of James who was a prominent
leader in the church at Jerusalem. This
James was the probable writer of the epistle of James, and he was Jesus’ half-brother. Therefore, the man named Jude who wrote this
epistle was also a half-brother of Jesus.
Little is known about Jude’s role in the
early church. He does have this epistle
bearing his name, and it seems as if he was a respected leader whose words
would readily have been given an audience.
Most Bible scholars concur that Jude was
written sometime near the end of the first century. The main reason for this conclusion lies in
the fact that Jude is concerned with heretical teachers and the prevalence of
false doctrine within the church. The
church would probably have had to have been established for a time for such a
plethora of false belief to have taken root.
There is a continuing question among
scholars regarding the relationship between Jude and II Peter. There are entire portions of Jude and II
Peter that are virtually word for word identical. The question is did Jude borrow from Peter,
or did Peter borrow from Jude’s writing?
Some of those in the early church felt the
Jude was merely a copy of II Peter. They
relegated Jude to non-canonical status.
Many in the early church regarded both Jude and II Peter to be outside
the canon of Scripture. However, the
church eventually came to the conclusion that both of these epistles should be
considered part of the New Testament.
Each book was seen to possess value in its own right.
One of the main reasons that Jude was not
accepted right away was due to the fact that Jude references two non-canonical
books within it as if they are authoritative.
Jude mentions an account where Michael the Archangel is in a dispute
with Satan over the body of Moses. This
account is taken from a book known as the Assumption of Moses.
Apparently, Jude believed this to be an
accurate recording of an event that actually took place. Neither Jewish nor Christian scholars hold to
the Assumption of Moses being an authoritative work or being part of the Old
Testament canon.
Also, Jude speaks of Enoch prophesying the
Second Coming of Jesus. This is supposed
to be the same Enoch who was taken to Heaven by God because he was a righteous
man. There is a Book of Enoch that cites
this prophecy that is not considered part of the Hebrew Bible.
So, what do we make of this? In my opinion, just because these accounts
are contained in non-canonical books does not mean that they did not
occur. Obviously they did, or they would
not be recorded in the Scriptures.
It is also possible that Jude is
referencing these stories to prove a point.
Often, we will reference a story from mythology to get a point
across. Jude may be doing this, but I
don’t think that this is the case.
Jude did not originally intend to write
his epistle on the subject of the dangers of false teachers and teachings in
the church. He intended to write an
epistle dealing with the common salvation we have through knowing Jesus Christ
as Savior and Lord.
However, Jude had to change his plans when
he realized that those who taught false doctrines had come into the church and
were leading many people astray. In
fact, Jude said that these false teachers perverted the grace of God into
sensuality and denied Jesus Christ.
Jude urges his readers to “earnestly
contend for the faith that was once delivered for the saints.” This is still something that is important for
us to do today.
We live in a day and age when many
churches no longer teach much about Christian theology. Many people in the pews don’t know what they
believe or why they are supposed to believe it.
Because of this, there is a great deal of unorthodox teaching in the
church today.
As believers in Jesus Christ, we have as
part of our responsibility the mission of standing up for sound doctrine. We should do this with gentleness and with
respect and not in some type of militant or hateful manner.
We will not be able to earnestly contend
for the faith if we do not know theology and sound doctrine ourselves. Therefore, we need to be students of the Word
and students of the theological disciplines.
If we encounter those who are attempting
to bring false teachings into our assemblies, we should by the use of Scripture
address the errors that they are attempting to introduce. We then need to demonstrate from the Bible
what the correct and orthodox teaching truly is.
It seems fairly clear from the text in
Jude that Jude was dealing with two particular false beliefs that were being
disseminated among the churches where his epistle was to be read. The first of these beliefs is known as
antinomianism. The Apostle Paul also
addressed this problem.
Antinomianism is a doctrine that promotes
a false idea of grace. According to Paul
in Romans 6, some were teaching that we should sin so that grace could abound
all the more. To this idea, Paul said,
“God forbid”.
I’ve encountered this teaching in a
modified form today. People will say
that we sin every day, and there is really nothing that we can do about it. Just ask Jesus to forgive you and move
on. Others will do something that they
know is wrong and then comment, “Well, God will forgive me if I ask Him
anyway.”
This type of belief is trampling upon the
grace of God and turning toward sensuality just as spoken of by Jude. Those of us who name the name of Jesus are to
be those who follow the path of Christ and obey His commandments and His
teachings. Jesus said that if we truly
love Him we will keep His commandments.
He also said that He can call us His friends if we do those things that
He has said.
If we truly love and serve Jesus, we will
not have a cavalier attitude toward sin in our lives. When we sin, we will repent, and then with
the help of the Holy Spirit, we will attempt to amend our lives so that we
don’t fall into sin in that same way again and again and again.
In the matter of false teachings in the
church, I just want to comment on the other area that Jude addresses which is
also prevalent in the church today.
The easiest way to detect false teaching
is to see what that teaching does with the person and work of Jesus Christ. Almost every false teaching will have a wrong
teaching about who Jesus is and what He did.
For instance, many will deny that Jesus
was God come in the flesh. In our day
and age, this takes the form of those who say that Jesus was just a good man or
a prophet. Even many in Christian
churches will deny the divinity of Jesus.
They deny His miracles and His supernatural virgin birth.
Also prevalent, even in the church today,
is a discounting of the substitutionary atonement of Christ. They will deny that Jesus died in our place
taking upon Himself our sin and the punishment that was due because of sin
against a Holy God.
Jude doesn’t have anything good to say
about false teachers. He compares them
to Cain, Balaam, Korah, brute beasts and the residents of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Cain murdered his brother Able. He brought a sacrifice that was unacceptable
to God, and hated his brother for doing what was right. He was truly an evil man.
Balaam was a prophet who was willing to prophecy
whatever someone asked as long as the price was right. He was even going to curse the people of God
until he was stopped by a talking donkey.
Korah did not respect the God ordained
authority that was given to Moses. He
rebelled, and he and his followers were punished by God.
False teachers also revile spiritual
beings. Jude said that even when Michael
was contending with Satan over the body of Moses, Michael said the Lord rebuke
you. He didn’t try to fight evil in his
own power; he invoked the power of the Lord who is the only one who has the
power to defeat pure evil.
One of the signs that we are living in the
last days before the return of Jesus is the fact that more and more false
teachers will arise. There are many
today who are not teaching the true orthodox doctrines of the Christian
faith. Many people are being led astray
because doctrine is not preached that much anymore. Often, the church service seems more like a
performance than a place where the Word of the Lord is taught in depth.
However, even in the midst of these trying
times, we as believers in Jesus are to build ourselves up in the faith. We are to keep praying in the power of the
Holy Spirit and sharing the message of Jesus’ love.
We know that just as Enoch prophesied,
Jesus will come again and establish His kingdom with power and great
glory. Love, justice and goodness will
prevail. Every knee throughout the
universe will bow and declare that Jesus Christ is Lord.
With this thought in mind, we are to
spread the message of salvation. We are
to live in such a way that we will not be ashamed should the Lord come at this
very moment. Even so, come Lord Jesus.
The final two verses in the book of Jude
are among the most beautiful in all of the Bible. The Lord is the one who keeps us in the faith
and keeps us on the narrow way that leads to eternal life. He will lead us all
the way to glory where we will enjoy His presence for all of eternity. All will be filled with joy and happiness.
All
glory, power, dominion and majesty belongs to the Lord both now and
forevermore.
Conclusion
As we have clearly seen, the smallest
books of the Bible contain powerful messages for us today. In this book, I have really only skimmed the
surface of these books. I urge you to
continue your study of these smallest books of the Bible. Dig deeper into them, and learn what it is
God would have you to know. May God
bless you all. Amen.
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