Weird Stuff in the Bible

Can We Disprespect the Devil?
Jude 8-10

R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Find out what it means to Thee.
Jude 9 is one of the strangest commands in the entire Bible to me. Well, let me start with
Jude 8.
In the very same way, on the strength of their dreams these ungodly people pollute their own bodies, reject authority and heap abuse on celestial beings.
So it’s telling us that we need to be really careful in how we talk about spiritual things because there’s a lot going on in the unseen realm that we don’t understand. And we get into trouble when we assume things, because we can assume a lot of things that are wrong.
If you’ve been listening to this podcast, I’ve tried to share things about the spiritual realm that most Christians don’t know about. The divine council. The Sons of God. The scope of God’s sovereignty. The unseen realm is more complicated than simply angels vs demons.
So Jude warns us to be careful in how we talk about spiritual beings. It says we might even inadvertently blaspheme good beings because we call something evil that is actually good.
And that brings us to Jude 9. One of the strangest commands in the entire Bible. It tells us to even temper the way in which we talk about God’s enemy: the devil.
Jude 9 says
But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not himself dare to condemn him for slander but said, “The Lord rebuke you!”
So it’s telling us right there: be careful how you talk about spiritual beings. Even be careful that you don’t disrespect the devil.
Now, that’s quite an extreme example to go to when telling that we need to show respect. So extreme that I find it to be weird. And I’d like to explore why it’s in the Bible.
So turn to Jude 9, and let’s get weird.
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Welcome to Weird Stuff in the Bible, where we explore scripture passages that are bizarre, perplexing or just plain weird. This is Luke Taylor, and today we’re going to be talking about R-E-S-P-E-C-T. And we will find out what it means to Thee.
And so we’re continuing this strange book of Jude, we’ll get through verse 10 today. Taking our time with it, and we’re still in this section talking about when Michael got into a fight with the Devil over the body of Moses. If that sounds completely foreign to you, if you have no idea when or why that happened, you’ll want to go back and listen to our previous episode. For this time, I’m going to push forward from that because that episode was about establishing WHAT happened. But this time, I’d like to talk about WHY it happened. Or: what is Jude’s purpose in bringing that story up?

Respect who?
Jude 9 again:
But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you.”
Jude’s point, which I don’t want to lose track of with all the other weirdness in that verse, is that we shouldn’t speak evil of others.
But this has to be the strangest example out of anything Jude could have used. He could have said, “Don’t speak evil of Joe Biden,” and I would have to say, “That’ll be hard Jude, but you said so, so I’m gonna accept it. I’ll try not to do that. I can give you a list of reasons that it should be OK for me to speak evil of Joe Biden, but you told me not to do it, so I won’t.”
Jude could have said, “don’t speak evil of Vladimir Putin.” And I would’ve said, “But Jude, you’re asking a lot here man. This is a madman who invaded another country. And I could have had a whole list about Putin as well and all the reasons I shouldn’t have to respect him. And that would’ve been a hard thing for Jude to sell me on. But Jude didn’t go to Vladimir Putin.
Jude could have said, “Don’t speak evil of Kathleen Kennedy who got the reins of the Star Wars franchise in 2012 and then immediately ran the whole thing into the ground.” And I would have said, “No Jude, you’ve crossed the line, you’ve went too far this time.” And I would have wept for my childhood and after some time, wiped my tears, turned back to Jude and said: OK. I won’t speak evil of Kathleen Kennedy, I’ll show some respect.
But Jude doesn’t go to any of those people when he gives his example in verse 9. Jude goes to someone else when he tells us to show respect. Jude leapfrogs President Biden and Jude leapfrogs Vladimir Putin and Jude…probably gets a little closer with Kathleen Kennedy and Jude’s example that he goes to when telling us to show respect is Satan.
He says, “Don’t speak evil of those in authority. Don’t even condemn Satan. Don’t even blaspheme the Devil.” Wow. That is probably the wildest example you could have pulled out. I mean, of all the people Jude could have used as an example. People who ask questions about the movie in the theater. No. People who put pineapple on pizza. No. Jude goes to the devil.
You know, by the time you get to Jude in your Bible reading, you’d think you had a pretty good handle on things. I mean, this is the end of the Bible. Stuff should be pretty clear by this point. Angels good. Demons bad. God good. Satan bad.
And then Jude comes along and he’s like, “Now you be careful in how you talk about the devil.” I’m like, “wait, what? Why?”
Because we don’t want to be like these people in
Jude 10
But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively.
You know what Jude is warning us in this section: that there’s a lot going on in the spiritual realm that we just don’t get. We just don’t get it.
That’s really been a recurring theme of my podcast. From the very beginning, I’ve been talking about territorial spirits and God’s divine council and spiritual warfare and different ranks of angels and why we don’t always use precise vocabulary when we describe them. We don’t get it.
This is why I did an episode a couple weeks ago about how God can even use Satan to accomplish His purposes. That means we might blame the devil for something that God did. And we have to be really really careful about that.
So that’s Jude’s warning for you and I. So let’s dig into this warning a little deeper.

Michael vs Satan
We talked about who Michael is last week. He is an archangel- one of the chief angels. So he holds one of the highest positions in God’s Kingdom. He has a high position of authority.
This passage presents Michael is opposition to Satan. Michael vs Satan. Now, when you present one thing vs another thing, the literary implication is that these are two equal forces head to head. Like Godzilla vs King Kong. I didn’t see the movie, but the idea is that this is supposedly going to be some kind of fair fight. Two equitable forces facing off. If one was vastly more powerful than the other, it wouldn’t be much of a movie.
That’s why Batman vs Superman was such a piece of trash. Those are not two equal forces. There is no way to make that a good movie and give you a good fight without severely weakening Superman. It was so bad you’d think Kathleen Kennedy was behind that, too.
So this story has Michael vs Satan. It’s not Jesus vs Satan. It’s not God vs Satan. When God wants Satan put in his place, God sends an angel to do it. In Revelation, when God sticks Satan in a bottomless pit, God sends an angel to throw him in there. It isn’t even an archangel that time. Just a regular old blue collar angel. Satan is not a threat to God. He’s not even really a threat to God’s angels.
And yet, Michael knew his place, and he knew it wasn’t even right to speak evil against Satan. Now think about that.
I mean, seriously. If you gotta pause the podcast for a little while just to soak that in, do it.
Some versions translate this verse as calling Satan a “dignity.” We wouldn’t typically call him that, but here’s the thing: he had a position, and Michael respected the position- even of Satan.

Honor All
Which is not how Christians today speak about Satan at all, if we’re honest. Christians can get a little cocky in how they go to speaking against the devil. Pastors can get a little cocky sometimes. And yet, the Bible doesn’t tell us to get cavalier about spiritual warfare. The Bible says: “these people blaspheme all that they do not understand”
So if you’re concerned about accidentally or carelessly doing this- and I think you should be concerned about it- let’s wrap up today with some thoughts on how we use our words. Let’s start with how we talk about people and we’ll work our way up to Satan.
Be careful how you speak
Against those in authority
The New Testament tells us to honor those in political authority. We Christians aren’t too good about this. This is where President Biden and Vladimir Putin come in. Even when you don’t feel much honor or respect for the individual, you should still respect the office that that person holds.
The New Testament also warns us to be careful how you speak against your enemies. This is where Kathleen Kennedy and the pineapple-pizza people come in.
Romans 12:18 – Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “’It is mine to avenge, I will repay,’ says the Lord.”
I apply this in situations all the time and I feel a lot better. Especially those situations in which I have no control.
Don’t curse other Christians
Zechariah 3 has a saved man (Joshua) standing before God and Satan is trying to accuse him of sin. But since Joshua is saved, his sin won’t make him appear unclean before God anymore.
Zechariah 3:1-2 - Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the Angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to oppose him. 2 And the Lord said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, Satan! The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?”
“the Lord rebuke you” = just like Jude. It means “God will take care of you”
“Is this not a brand plucked from the fire” = we deserved the fire of hell, but since we were saved, we were plucked from the fire. That’s true of everyone who is a Christian; don’t speak evil of them.
When you speak negatively against the church, you’re speaking negatively against Jesus’ wife. It doesn’t mean we pretend the church is perfect, it means be careful that our vocal judgments of it don’t go beyond what is appropriate.
Remember that we discussed last time how Satan is the Accuser of the Brethren. So when we act as the accuser of the brethren, who are we helping out?
In spiritual warfare
We don’t rebuke even demons, the Lord does. So we don’t say, “I rebuke you Satan.”
The Bible tells us to resist the Devil and stand against the devil, but leave the rebuking to the Lord.
Acts 19:13-16 - 13 Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists took it upon themselves to call the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “We exorcise you by the Jesus whom Paul preaches.” 14 Also there were seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, who did so.
15 And the evil spirit answered and said, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?”
16 Then the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, overpowered them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.
All demon exorcism is in Jesus name and only by Christians who know Jesus. Not about Jesus. They KNOW Jesus.
So when you engage in spiritual warfare- and I hope you will, I hope you aren’t intimidated out of it today- but make sure you are relying on the power of God in how you approach it. Don’t get cocky about it as if you are the one doing anything. You have no power other than the power in YOUR relationship with Jesus.
And if you speak against the devil, I would just be careful not to go beyond what the Bible says. So many Christians repeat things in their prayers that just sounded good to them because they heard some other Christian said it. I think about that a lot when I hear people make declarations over their lives; “I declare” this or “I’m drawing a circle around that.” Am I saying that’s always bad or that they’re outright sinning? No. But I think it would be better if we just stuck to biblical language.
I heard about a prayer meeting this past week where the speaker told God he “demanded” something. He said “I demand this and that.” And the things he wanted seemed like good things, but I’m sure uncomfortable telling God that I demand that He do what I want.
Now, maybe there’s a place for bold prayers, so email and tell me if you disagree. But when Jesus told us to pray, He said to say, “Thy Kingdom come, THY WILL be done.” To me, that means I’m saying, “God, I’m just putting this prayer out there. If it doesn’t align with your will, you can toss it out.”
And I think that’s the humble attitude we should bring to prayer. And I think that humility gets lost when we get carried away with claiming and declaring things over our lives. And I think that kind of attitude spills over into our spiritual warfare as well. And we need to sometimes take inventory and return to how the Bible tells us to do it. The Bible doesn’t teach us to say, “I rebuke you, Satan.” It teaches us to say, “The Lord rebuke you.”
So Jude 8-10 is about knowing our place. And respecting the place of celestial beings, even beings like Satan himself.

Closing Thoughts
Next time on this podcast, I’m going to do a mailbag episode. I know I kept saying I was going to do a mailbag the past couple of episodes and then I never did it. That’s pretty lame, right? So I’m gonna just do a mailbag episode next week and catch up on some of the feedback and questions you all have been sending me.
Make sure you’re subscribed so you can get it!
After that episode, I’m going to take a little break. When I started this podcast, I said I would probably do three months on, one month off. And based on the time I have available to work on this podcast, that is probably a good schedule to keep. So I’m going to do the mailbag episode next week, and then probably take the rest of February off. We’ll be back in March with more Weird Stuff in the Bible!
In the meantime, if you need to get in touch: weirdstuffinthebible@gmail.com
You can also find me on Twitter: @WeirdBibleGuy
And so when we come back in March, let me go ahead and read to you what we’ll be getting into:
Jude 11
Woe to them! They have taken the way of Cain; they have rushed for profit into Balaam’s error; they have been destroyed in Korah’s rebellion.
Now, that verse gives us a LOT of material to work with. We’ll spend several lessons talking about just these things in Jude 11. And we’ll cover topics like this:
Why did God accept Abel’s offering but reject Cain’s?
Who was the mysterious Balaam, a prophet who had a legitimate gift of prophecy but only cared about money?
Does the Bible ACTUALLY have a story about a talking donkey?
And when did the ground open up and drop a bunch of people straight into hell? And not just when, but why?
If you think all that sounds weird, I hope you’re ready to come back and get weird with me in March. Thanks for listening, God bless you for sticking around until the end, and we’ll see you next time.