Feasts of Unproductivity
“These people are blemishes at your love feasts, eating with you without the slightest qualm—shepherds who feed only themselves. They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted—twice dead. They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever”
(Jude 1:12-13).
The Apostle Jude characterizes the false teachers as blemishes. The false teachers mingled with the saints to dine and entertain themselves, but the Lord viewed them as a stain amidst His people. Whereas the saints came together to fellowship in the Lord, these blemishes disrupted their gatherings’ purity. The Bible says: “Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts” (Acts 2:46). In other words, these false teachers were like having bad apples in a bag among good ones. Jude describes them as not having any qualms (αηδία) or, in Greek, means having a feeling of consciousness.[1] They did not have any regard for the sins they were committing against God. Moreover, Jude depicted them as self-seeking shepherds. Similar to Jude’s rebuke, the Lord had some choice words for the shepherds during the Prophet Isaiah’s day.
The Lord was disgusted with Israel and their leadership. They were idolatrous, and the leaders did little to return the people’s hearts to Him. The Bible says: “Israel’s watchmen are blind, they all lack knowledge; they are all mute dogs, they cannot bark; they lie around and dream, they love to sleep. They are dogs with mighty appetites; they never have enough. They are shepherds who lack understanding; they all turn to their own way, they seek their own gain” (Isaiah 56:10-11). To be referred to as a dog was anything but flattery or a compliment, but this was what God likened them to. Yes, the Lord called them greedy dogs who were never content nor had enough to satisfy their unholy hunger. It was not enough to wallow in sin themselves; they also had to bring others down to their disgrace. Similarly, the church is full of pastors, evangelists, and the likes who are only in the ministry for money, not souls. For them, the more people who fill their churches is just another potential dollar to their account. They would disband and discontinue the ministry altogether if they found it no longer lucrative and productive regarding their financial portfolio.
Jude called these false teachers clouds without rain, which meant they could not feed the people what they needed. In John 4:10, Jesus called himself the Living Water. All who needed spiritual replenishment could drink from Him. Yet, these shepherds did not offer the Living Water to anyone because they did not drink from Him themselves, know Him or seek to have a relationship with Him due to their mutiny against the Lord. Jude further portrays them as dead autumn trees that were neither producing nor rooted in the ground. They were spiritually dead, and nothing resembling life could come from them. Likewise, Jesus rebuked the nonproductive fig tree in Mark 11 because an unfruitful tree was worthless. Those who were to produce good fruit for the kingdom but failed to do so were valueless in the kingdom of God. Jude labeled such people twice dead, for they did not produce and had no foundation – thus, they had been uprooted from the Solid Rock.
Jude further depicted these individuals as wild sea waves bubbling in disgrace and wandering stars reserved for eternal darkness. Wild (ágrios) in Greek means untamed or undomesticated.[2] The wind can cause the sea to experience untamed waves, such as when Jesus calmed the storm. Scientists call extreme or wild sea waves Rouges because they are twice their standard size and can be very unpredictable. Therefore, the false teachers were untamed and marinating in shame despite having what looked like a thriving base because they failed to allow the Potter to mold them into His image. They had gone rogue and thought they knew better than their Creator. Yet, the Prophet Isaiah prayed to the Lord to remove such evil from the people. The Bible says: “No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us and have given us over to our sins. Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand” (Isaiah 56:7-8).
The same applies to Jude’s analogy of the wandering stars for which eternal darkness was reserved. Stars are supposed to shine during darkness. Yet, these stars had lost their place and could not glow in the dark. The Prophet Daniel wrote: “And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever” (Daniel 12:3). Unlike Daniel’s description of how the Children of God should be, darkness had flooded the minds and hearts of the false teachers, and they were going to have their day of judgment, which would result in being lost to God forever.
Those who do the Lord’s will have the promise of light being in the darkness. Only those who choose to do evil will suffer darkness because they have refused to know the truth, and the truth is not in them. Yet, Jude reminds the faithful that God will keep them until He returns, which is where the believer’s hope should rest.[3] The Bible says: “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand” (John 10:28-29). Therefore, one can rest assured that the Lord will keep His faithful children in the palms of His hands, and those who seek to do His will and please the Lord will never be taken out of His divine protection.
The Apostle Peter spoke of water, storms, and darkness as well, but he elaborates further to say: “For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of the flesh, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error”(2 Peter 2:18). Peter’s statement regarding their speech lets us know that there will be those teachers who are eloquent with their words, and yet, they are full of hot air. They make sin appealing to those who are either new believers or those who do not wish to be delivered from it. These teachers misuse the grace message, as we talked about in earlier chapters, and cause people to believe that their sins are acceptable to God and that He will turn and look the other way. Instead of helping them be free from sin, these leaders are living sinfully themselves and enslaved to it. The Apostle Peter said: “They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for “people are slaves to whatever has mastered them” (2 Peter 2:19). One can’t help deliver someone else if they are bound themselves, which is why many within the church are at a stalemate because they have yet to be delivered from their own sinful behavior.
[1] Word Reference Staff, "Qualm - Αγγλοελληνικό Λεξικό WordReference.com," English to French, Italian, German & Spanish Dictionary - WordReference.com, last modified 2023, https://www.wordreference.com/engr/qualm.
[2] Glosbe Editorial Staff, "Wild in Greek - English-Greek Dictionary | Glosbe," Glosbe Dictionary - All Languages of the World in One Place, last modified 2023, https://glosbe.com/en/el/wild.
[3] Abner Chou, The Hermeneutics of the Biblical Writers: Learning to Interpret Scripture from the Prophets and Apostles (Grand Rapids: Kregel Academic, 2018), 189-190.
No comments:
Post a Comment