JudeShembull

When the Going Gets Tough - #4

We've been exploring Jude's advice for Christians facing false teaching in troubled times. His response is not to obsess over trouble or falsehood, but to work in three key areas:

1. Personal Devotion 
2. Loving Perseverance 
3. Compassionate Outreach

Today we come to the third area, which, I believe, is absolutely critical for our faith to remain vibrant and meaningful, Compassionate Outreach.

Jude urges his readers to an outward focused and compassionate lifestyle and I believe that this is particularly important in these unsettled times.

Let's pick up a few thoughts...

• It is very easy to become impatient and intolerant of those who are thrown into doubt and confusion when tough times and bad teaching abounds. Jude calls us to be "merciful" and it is  same word that Jesus uses in the beatitudes. It's also the same word that gets used over and over in the gospels when people ask Jesus for help, and His compassion toward them is our guideline. The word Jude uses for "doubt" is very interesting: it can be translated as "doubt", "contend", "criticize", "discern", "hesitate", "see differently", "waver" or "weigh." It really describes someone who is wrestling intellectually. It's very easy to be dismissive of those who doubt or are critical. Jude says we should be merciful to people in these circumstances - it is our compassion and not clever arguments that win people over.
• We also need to be reaching out to those "in the fire". I think there are two ways of seeing this; Jude could be pointing towards people who are in urgent physical, emotional or spiritual need. I also think it could be that Jude considers those who are being sucked into the false teaching as being "in the fire." The bottom line is, it doesn't matter what fire people are in, we should be reaching out to them.
• We need to be merciful but cautious. Sometimes the very situations that we want to rescue people from can suck us in. While we we need to care hugely about people, we have to recognise that we can get sucked into the darkness that sucked them in.

If we only do the first two things that Jude talked about (Personal Devotion and Loving Perseverance) then our faith is in danger of becoming a self-centered indulgence that bears no real fruit. Even in difficult circumstances, such as lockdown, we can reach out in prayer, through phone calls, encouragement and charity to others...and we must!