Thinking in 3’s - Jude 1,2 - Kept, and Keeping

Thinking in 3’s - Jude 1,2 - Kept, and Keeping

Jude 1 Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, To those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ: ² May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.

The Letter of Jude is brief, but important. Jude identifies himself as a “servant” or “slave” of Jesus Christ, though we understand that he was a brother of Jesus. It seems highly unusual for a brother to identify himself as a servant, but this is no ordinary relationship.

Jude writes to those who must “contend for the faith” (v.3) because of intruders who are mixing the message and contaminating the faith, a “3” that we will get to shortly.

I would like to combine some “3’s” in this post. First of all, Jude identifies those to whom he is writing in theological terms: called, beloved, and kept. These are actions that are performed by God in behalf of believers. We do not “call” ourselves. God calls. Christianity is not about loving ourselves. We are beloved by God. We don’t keep or defend ourselves, especially against spiritual forces. We are kept by God. This is what I mean by theological. They are divine activities, which provides a framework for who we are and how we live.

Verse 2 has a list of three words that I would like to relate to these three divine activities. In this case, I will align like this: A-B-C; A-B-C. That is, called in mercy, thus sparing us from the wrath of God; beloved and thus experiencing peace, as opposed to enmity with God; kept by Jesus’ love, which is ever-present and part of our daily experience as we daily walk with Him. What we find is that the divine actions are associated with most compassionate and gracious of God’s perfections and relations to humanity. We will find in this little letter that God also will also relate to sinful humanity, but with qualities in keeping with justice/judgment. We should be very grateful that God is willing to relate to us in His divine activities in mercy, peace, and love.

Also, taking the last element of the first list of three, “kept,” we find that it is part of a “3” in the Letter of Jude, which includes vv. 21, 24

²¹ keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. 
Jude 24   Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling

We find that the first and last of these “keepings” are performed by God in our behalf: “kept for Jesus Christ,” and “Him who is able to keep you from stumbling.” In between we find that we have an important role to play as well - “keep yourself sin the love of God.” The surrounding participles help us understand that this does not mean that we need to work to sustain God’s love for us. No, God’s love is self-sustaining. Rather, we are to keep ourselves in a proper frame to receive God’s compassionate and gracious manifestations by “building up” and “praying” and “waiting,” another “3” that we will have to look at later. 

This elongated emphasis on “keeping” helps us to understand Jude’s primary concern as he writes to people like us: In our being divinely and graciously kept, we’ve got some patterns, some disciplines, some engagements to keep as well.