Jude 1:3: “Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once and for all entrusted to God’s holy people.”

Reading the Book of Jude is like reading today’s newspaper, or whatever social media platform you get your news from. Jude addressed issues in the church that unfortunately get passed from generation to generation.

False doctrine can result from a lack of printed material, which would have been the case in Jude’s day. The writers of the New Testament understood that, so they wrote letters to the churches to teach them the truth. False doctrine can also come from printed false information, which fits our day. Unlike the generation 2,000 years ago, however, we have no excuse for not knowing the truth. Technology may have reduced the number of printed Bibles in our homes, but each of us can carry the Bible with us everywhere we go on our phones. It’s a matter of whether we make time to read or listen to God’s Word.

Jude saw the danger of the false doctrine that had infiltrated the church, and he felt compelled to speak up. Some translations say, “I felt it necessary to write, or I felt the necessity to write, or I felt it needful to write.”

The Message Bible says it like this: ”  Dear friends, I’ve dropped everything to write you about this life of salvation that we have in common. I have to write insisting—begging!—that you fight with everything you have in you for this faith entrusted to us as a gift to guard and cherish.”

Jude’s concern was not what the world was teaching, but what the church was teaching, and I share his concern. We must stand upon God’s truth, not man’s truth, for only God’s truth can set us free.