Following is an excerpt (the Preface) of the upcoming book, Jude: Creeps in the Church. This book is part of the new Study Guide Series by author, Jeff Kluttz. This series is verse-by-verse expositional outlines of entire biblical books. These works are suitable for personal study, pastoral commentary and outline study, or in use for a teacher preparing to teach a biblical book. Jude is the first. Romans Vol. 1 is written, and 2/3rds re-written. Afterward it will be edited and released, probably mid-June. Romans Vol 2, Malachi, and Jonah are also written and are still subject to re-writes and editing. (Malachi/Jonah will come in a single volume)
You can find all books at Jeff Kluttz’ author page, here: https://www.amazon.com/author/kluttz
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The Preface to Jude: Creeps in the Church
Preface
Jude sat down to write one letter and was compelled by circumstance to write another. He had intended a celebration — a word of encouragement about the salvation his readers shared with him and with one another. Instead, he found it necessary, by his own description, to write a letter of alarm. Impostors had crept into the congregations. The false teachers that Peter had prophesied were no longer a coming threat. They had arrived. The letter he wrote in response to that reality is twenty-five verses long and runs with the sustained urgency of a man who cannot afford to be misunderstood.
That urgency has not diminished with the passing of two thousand years. The men Jude described — self-guided, self-serving, self-promoting, defiling their own flesh while teaching others to do the same, denying the lordship of Christ while using his name as their credential — are not a first-century curiosity. They are a permanent feature of the church age. Jesus said so in the Olivet Discourse. Paul said so in his letters to Timothy. Peter said so in the letter Jude quotes throughout his own. The apostolic witness on this subject is unanimous: the church age will be characterized by this kind of corruption, and it will grow worse as the age advances toward its end. Jude’s letter is not a historical artifact. It is a living document addressed to every generation of the church that has ears to hear it.
This commentary and teaching guide exists because of a problem that every serious teacher of God’s word eventually faces. The resources for studying a biblical text are rich and vast — commentaries, lexicons, word study tools, historical backgrounds, canonical cross-references, the accumulated scholarship of centuries. Engaging them thoroughly is rewarding. It is also time-consuming, technically demanding, and productive of far more material than any single lesson, sermon, or study can contain. The typical result of a thorough study of a biblical passage is that eighty percent of what has been discovered never makes it into the room where the teaching actually happens. It ends up on the cutting room floor — not because it was unimportant, but because the work of distillation is itself an enormous task, and the teacher who has already spent hours in the research rarely has equivalent hours remaining for the refinement.
This work is designed to represent the useful twenty percent — already distilled, already organized, already in a form that can be taken directly into the teaching context without further processing. Every chapter follows the text of Jude verse by verse. Original Greek terms are examined where they carry the weight of the argument, with their meanings unpacked in plain language and their significance to the passage made explicit. Historical and canonical context is provided where it is essential to understanding what Jude is saying and why. Old Testament backgrounds are traced where Jude draws upon them. The argument of the letter is followed from its opening alarm to its closing doxology as a coherent whole, with each chapter building on what has come before and anticipating what follows. No prior knowledge of Greek is required. No supplementary tools are necessary. The work has already been done.
A word about the approach to scripture that governs this work. Every conclusion reached in these pages is formed by a careful examination of the biblical text itself. The author is a Biblicist — one who believes that the Bible is the literal word of God, that all essential doctrines of the Christian faith are discovered and defined by the writings it contains, and that all biblical teaching is to proceed from one’s understanding of scripture rather than from any political, ideological, or cultural framework external to it. Where the author offers a personal opinion on a disputed matter — as he does, for instance, in the discussion of Genesis 6 and the identity of the sons of God — he says so plainly and invites the reader to examine the evidence and arrive at his own conclusion. The goal throughout is not to impose a reading but to open the text.
Scripture quotations in this work are taken primarily from the Christian Standard Bible. Primary teaching texts — those passages that are the direct subject of the chapter’s exposition — are presented as indented block quotations. Supporting and corollary scriptures that illuminate the argument without being its primary focus are embedded in the prose with their references noted inline. Original language terms are italicized throughout.
What follows is a chapter-by-chapter journey through one of the most urgent letters in the New Testament canon. The journey begins where Jude begins — with the question of who he was, who he was writing to, and what had compelled him to write at all. It ends where Jude ends — with his eyes lifted from the impostors in the room to the God who is able to protect his people from stumbling and to present them blameless in his glory with great joy. Between those two points, Jude covers more theological and pastoral ground than the brevity of his letter might suggest. This guide is an attempt to ensure that none of that ground is left uncovered.
Jude called his readers to contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. The faith has not changed. The contention is still required. May this work serve those who have answered that call.
Kindle is online now – you’ll find it here
Paperback coming June 1st – you’ll find it here
The first church John was asked to address of the seven was the church in Ephesus; a church which received both praise and rebuke from the Lord’s letter.