Follow Christ feeling bored by doctrine

Jude makes personalized statements about the position of believers in Christ no later than the initial lines of his epistle, in which he calls his recipients "called", "loved" and "kept" (v. 1). Jude's Christian identity survey makes me think: am I as confident as Jude about these descriptions? Do I receive them with the same sense of obviousness with which they are written?

The foundation of Jude's thinking when writing these personalized statements is hinted at in his letter. First suggestion: Jude writes about what his recipients once knew: the message of Christ that these recipients had already heard, although they had forgotten about it since (v. 5). Second suggestion: mention the spoken words they had received, referring to the teaching of the apostles (v. 17). However, Jude's direct reference to his thinking lies in his thesis, in which he asks readers to fight for faith (v. 3).

Jude becomes familiar with his readers with the basic teachings of faith, the message of Christ from the apostles - known as kerygma (Greek). Dockery and George write in The Great Tradition of Christian Thinking that the kerygma is, “the announcement of Jesus Christ as Lord of lords and king of kings; the way, the truth and the life. Faith is what we must say and tell the world about what God has done once and for all in Jesus Christ. "

According to Jude's personalized introduction, the Christian faith must have an appropriate and subjective impact on us. Meaning, we must be able to say, "This is my truth, my faith, my Lord", and I am called, loved, and preserved. However, the established and objective Christian kerygma proves to be the essential basis for this Christian life.

What is Kerygma?
The firstborn father Irenaeus - a student of Polycarp, who was a student of the apostle John - left us this expression of the kerygma in his writing Saint Irenaeus against heresies:

"The Church, although scattered ... has received this faith from the apostles and their disciples: [she believes] in one God, the Almighty Father, Creator of heaven and earth, and of the sea and all the things that are in them ; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who incarnated for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensations of God and the advocates and the birth of a virgin, the passion and resurrection from the dead and the ascension to heaven in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus, our Lord, and His [future] manifestation from heaven in the glory of the Father 'to bring all things together in one', and to resurrect all the flesh of the entire human race, so that to Christ Jesus, our Lord and God, the Savior and the King , according to the will of the invisible Father, "every knee should bow, ... and that every tongue should confess" to him, and that he should execute the right judgment towards everyone; that he could send "spiritual wickedness" and the angels who transgressed and became apostates, together with the wicked, unjust, wicked and profane among men, in eternal fire; but he can, in the exercise of his grace, confer immortality on the righteous and the saints and on those who have respected his commandments and persevered in his love ... and can surround them with eternal glory ". in the eternal fire; but he can, in the exercise of his grace, confer immortality on the righteous and the saints and on those who have respected his commandments and persevered in his love ... and can surround them with eternal glory ". in the eternal fire; but he can, in the exercise of his grace, confer immortality on the just and on the saints and on those who have respected his commandments and persevered in his love ... and can surround them with eternal glory ".

Consistent with what Dockery and George teach, this summary of faith focuses on Christ: his incarnation for our salvation; His resurrection, ascension and future manifestation; His exercise of transformative grace; and His coming is only the judgment of the world.

Without this objective faith, there is no service in Christ, no calling, no being loved or maintained, no faith or purpose shared with other believers (because no church!) And no certainty. Without this faith, Judah's first lines of comfort to encourage his fellow believers about their relationship with God could not exist. The solidity of our personal relationship with God, therefore, is not based on the strength of our feelings of God or spiritual realities.

Rather, it is based entirely on the fundamental truths of who God is - the immutable principles of our historical faith.

Jude is our example
Jude is confident about how the Christian message applies to himself and his believing audience. For him, there is no doubt, it does not waver. He is certain of the matter, since he received apostolic teaching.

Living now in a time where highly rewarded subjectivity, jumping or minimizing objective truths can be tempting - even feeling more natural or authentic if we tend to find the greatest meaning in what or how we feel. For example, we may pay little attention to declarations of faith in our churches. We may not try to know what the precise language of long-standing declarations of faith means and why it was chosen, or the history that led us to such declarations.

Exploring these topics may seem removed by us or inapplicable (which is not a reflection of the topics). At least, saying that these topics are easily addressed or seem immediately relevant to our personal expressions or experiences of faith could be a trait for us - if my thinking was an example.

But Jude must be our example. The prerequisite for establishing oneself in Christ - let alone contending for faith in our churches and in our world - is to know what is placed on Him. And what this could mean for the ears of the Millennium is this: we must be attentive to what which initially may seem boring.

The dispute begins within us
The first step in fighting for faith in this world is to contend in ourselves. An obstacle that we may have to jump over for possessing the New Testament's reflective faith, and it can be steep, is following Christ through what may seem boring. Overcoming this obstacle implies engaging with Christ not primarily for the way it makes us feel, but for what it really is.

While Jesus challenged his disciple, Peter, "Who do you say I am?" (Matthew 16:15).

By understanding the meaning of Jude behind the faith - the kerygma - we can therefore understand more deeply his instructions towards the end of his epistle. He instructs his beloved readers to build "yourselves in your most holy faith" (Jude 20). Is Jude teaching his readers to stir up greater feelings of loyalty within themselves? No. Jude refers to his thesis. He wants his readers to contend for the faith they have received, starting from themselves.

Jude is teaching his readers to build themselves in faith. They must stand on the corner stone of Christ and on the foundation of the apostles (Ephesians 2: 20-22) as they teach to build metaphors in Scripture. We must measure our belief commitments against the standard of scripture, adapting all wandering commitments to adapt to the authoritative Word of God.

Before we let ourselves be disappointed by not feeling Judas' same level of trust in our position in Christ, we can ask ourselves if we have received and committed ourselves to what has long been taught about him - if we have witnessed the faith and gained preference for this. We must pretend for ourselves doctrine, starting from the kerygma, which is unchanged by the apostles up to our day, and without faith without it.