Weird Stuff in the Bible

The Book of Jude is Weird
Jude 1-4

Introduction
Students of prophecy have a little bit of a debate going on about what the world will look like right before the rapture. Will there be a great falling away, a great apostasy, right before the end of the world kicks off? Or will there be a great move of God, a revival that sweeps across the earth, just before the end comes?
I was having lunch with someone years ago who asked me: which do you think it’ll be? A great revival or a great falling away? And I said: I think it’s gonna be both. I think both of those things are going to happen, and we see it happening now. We see the squishy middle being pushed out in the church, and people are having to pick a side. It’s getting harder and harder to say, “I’m a Christian, but I believe all this worldly stuff, I vote for all these wicked things, I’m not really obedient to Christ,” etc. It’s getting harder to justify that.
We’re really seeing the days come where people must pick a side. Are you gonna follow Christ or not? Because you just can’t be halfway-in, halfway-out anymore. You have to pick one. So the middle is disappearing, and people have to pick a side. And that’s why you see many falling away; you’re just seeing what was always inside them coming into light. But you also see many people stepping up to the plate and standing against the wickedness in their culture, finding a strength inside themselves that they never knew they had.
And this is what the book of Jude is about. Picking a side. If you’re gonna live wickedly, fine, but don’t say you’re a Christian. You’re an apostate. And if you’re gonna be a Christian, you’ll find a strength from the Holy Spirit that’s from out of this world. Literally.
And beyond all that, it’s a great book to read as we approach the end of days.
But there are a lot of weird things in the book of Jude, things that are so bizarre, it’s hard to see how they could be relevant to our lives right now. Don’t we have enough going on with Russia and Ukraine and Israel and inflation and Trump just got indicted for the 16th time and I need to think about Christmas shopping, is this really the time to start a Bible study on Jude?
I think it’s the perfect time, and if you listen until the end, I’ll explain why. So grab a Bible, turn to the book of Jude, and let’s get weird.
[theme music]

Verses 1-4, The Threat of Apostasy
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 the book of Jude.
This is kind of an introductory episode because I’d like to use Jude as my framework for where I want to go for the next few months on the podcast. Jude mentions a lot of totally off-the-wall things. I want to mention some of the things today that make Jude stand out from other books in the Bible. So today is an introduction, and we’ll go more in-depth on the book in the weeks and months ahead.
So I’ll read the first 4 verses today, we’ll talk about some of the things that makes Jude weird.
Jude 1-2
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.
Jude was written by one of Jesus’ literal brothers. I’ll tell you a little secret about Mary: she bore other children after the birth of Jesus. Jesus had brothers. Don’t tell your Catholic friends, it would ruin their day. But God actually hid this little secret in the Bible by stating it openly and clearly in John 7, Matthew 12, Matthew 13, Mark 6, Acts 1, I Corinthians 9, or Galatians 1.
Again, I don’t think your Catholic friends have those chapters in their Bible, so don’t go and confuse them with the facts.
So two of Jesus’ literal brothers were James and Jude, who also both wrote books in the New Testament. The names of those books are James and Jude. I hope you’re able to keep up with me so far today.
Some oddities with the BOJ:
It’s only one chapter (there are 5 books of the Bible that are just one chapter). So we’ll refer to Jude 1-4 for verses 1-4, etc.
It’s a picture book. Just about every verse is using an OT story as a picture of something he is trying to teach us for today.
It’s almost a verse-for-verse retelling of II Peter 2. IDK which came first.
Everything is in 3s.
Just up above: this is written to those who are called, beloved and kept. Verse two: mercy, peace and love.
Everything in Jude is in triplets; there are 25 of them. 25 verses, 25 groups of 3.
A connection with James. James talks about good works as a sign of saving faith. Jude is about evil works as a sign of apostasy.
I was reading an interview a few months ago with Benedict Cumberbatch and I was thinking about how Benedict is a fairly common name, even though you don’t ever see it in America. Why? Benedict Arnold, obviously. People won’t name their kids after traitors. So you can probably imagine that the name Judas wasn’t real popular in the early Christian church. Jude’s full name is Judas.
A book about apostasy written by a guy with the name of the biggest apostate in history!
Chuck Missler: People today will even name their pets after terrible Roman Emperors who tortured Christians like Nero or Caesar, but nobody would even name their dog Judas.
However, you will see many Christians today name their kids Jude. And Jude is a great name. Nothing wrong with the name. Even the Beatles wrote a song about him.
Jude 3
3 Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.
Jude wanted to write a nice happy book about salvation and the gospel and theology, like Paul is always doing (“although I was very eager”). BUT, the Holy Spirit changed Jude’s mind and commanded him to write about something else (“I found it necessary to write”).
Instead, Jude feels that he needs to write and contend for the faith. What is the faith? The body of truth in Christianity. So Jude begins: I sat down to write this nice letter about grace and the love of God, but instead God told me to write about fighting for Christianity.
Some will say that truth changes, that what is true today was not necessarily what was true 2000 years ago. But Jude says no, this is the faith that was “once for all” delivered to the saints.
Jude 4
4 For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.
Jude is concerned that there are too many false teachers. They are perverting the Gospel. Now, let’s establish what a false teacher is. The phrase might get thrown around a little too loosely nowadays. Sometimes we disagree with someone on some minor doctrine. Something like infant baptism. Some Christians teach that it’s right to baptize babies. Some teach that it’s wrong. Now, I have my opinion on that, and there are other God-fearing Christians who have arrived at a different answer to that question than what I have. Does that mean I’m calling them false teachers? No. There are Christians who teach differently than I do on how often you should take communion. Does that make them false teachers? No. There are Christians who teach differently than I do on musical instruments in the church. There are even Christians who wear crocs and drink eggnog after New Year’s. Do any of those things make them false teachers? No. Because while I might strongly disagree with them about their footwear, those things do not pervert the Gospel.
We reserve the term false teacher for those who teach a false gospel or promote lawlessness in their lifestyle. People who say, “you’re saved, so you can do what you want”; or “God’s not mad at you, He doesn’t care who you sleep with” or “it doesn’t matter what religion you follow, anyone can find God.”
Common deceptions today are that homosexuality is OK, or that God is pro-LGBT. Or they’ll make Jesus into a hippie who doesn’t care about sin. Or they’ll add works to the Gospel. Or they’ll say works don’t matter at all and teach what is called hyper-grace. Or they’ll teach that Jesus was a created being; you would probably be surprised to look at the Barna Group research and learn how frequently people who identify as Christians also believe that Jesus was a created being.
All of these things are heretical. They aren’t secondary issues, because they actually pervert the Gospel of Christ. And Jude is going to teach us about how to handle these people and how to live in a society that believes this stuff.

Strange Things about Jude
Now so far, this all might sound like pretty typical New Testament stuff. That’s because I’ve only read the first four verses. Almost every sermon or devotional or quotation I see about the book of Jude is taken from either the first four verses or the last two verses. That’s because those are the only “normal” parts of the book. After that, it takes a strange turn, and that’s what I want to talk about with you over the next several weeks.
The way Jude goes after this issue is basically by opening the Bible’s junk drawer. The junk drawer is where you toss in all those things that you aren’t sure where they go. Like, you have random objects in your house that are hard to categorize, right? And you aren’t sure what to do with them. So you just toss all of those things into a random drawer and on those rare occasions that you need one of them, you go dig it out. Well, that’s kind of like what the book of Jude is like. I mean no disrespect with this statement, but it’s kinda like the Bible’s junk drawer. As we cover these verses in the weeks and months ahead, we’re going to find some very strange and random verses. Verses like:
Jude 6
And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day—
The angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, what is this referring to? We’ll be talking about that.
They’re kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness- you can probably surmise that this is talking about hell. But this is not just hell, but a specific region within hell, and we’ll study that as we come to that verse.
Jude 9 says
But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses,
Woah, I missed that class when I was in ministry school! When did an angel named Michael get into a fight with the literal devil over the body of Moses? That’s not a story you read in the Old Testament. In fact, this is one of the most mysterious passages in the whole Bible. Some of this is theoretical, but I’m going to spend an episode studying what this is perhaps all about.
Jude 14 and 15 say
14 It was also about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones, 15 to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”
So Enoch was a prophet- or at least, he prophesied- and verses 14 and 15 of Jude give us his prophesy about the end times. Now, you’re probably familiar with Enoch- he has a very short story early on in Genesis, and he isn’t mentioned too much after that. But do you realize that this prophecy is found nowhere in the pages of the Bible?
So, where is Jude getting it from? Jude receives it from an extra biblical source called the Book of Enoch. A book which is not included within the canon of Scripture. And yet, there are various New Testament writers who rely on it for information. So, does that mean it should be included in the Bible? Not necessarily. But perhaps should we be willing to give the Book of Enoch a closer look if some of our own New Testament authors believed it. And we’ll take a look at the book of Enoch on this podcast to assist in our understanding of the book of Jude.
And so here is why I say that Jude is kinda like the Bible’s junk drawer. Just a lot of strange, random things in it that don’t seem to belong anywhere else. And yet, Jude is going to make it all incredibly relevant to your life today.
I see Jude as a book for our time. The time right before the rapture. The time we may be in right now. I’ll explain why I think that as we close down in just a few moments.

Housekeeping/Mailbag
For now, I want to remind you to get subscribed so that you can follow along with future episodes and be here for the whole Jude series. Next time, I’m working on an episode called Who Are the Sons of God? This is another thing we need to establish before we jump any deeper into Jude. The Sons of God are a cast of characters mentioned in Genesis 6 and all throughout the Bible. They play an important role in the pre-flood world, and will help us understand why God had to do something as drastic as a worldwide flood. So we’re going to start getting into all that over the next few weeks, and that’ll bring us back to the book of Jude soon as well.
What weird stuff in the Bible do you want to know more about? weirdstuffinthebible@gmail.com
We had a response from Joe in North Carolina. He said, “Michael took Moses' body, likely to prevent the corruption of the grave. Moses will be fresh and rested for his (possible ) coming performance in Jerusalem.” Yes, that is my main theory as well. And when we get there in the Jude study, I plan to lay all that out. He also tipped me off about the six-fingered giants of Lovelock Cave. I will research that very soon as well. Thank you, Joe!

Closing Thoughts
I believe that Jude is about the world right before the rapture. In fact, that’s why it’s the last book before Revelation. I don’t believe that’s by chance. I believe it’s by God’s intended design. Revelation is about the end of the world. Jude is about the world right before the end of the world.
If the rapture is next year, the Book of Jude is about this year. If the rapture is 5 years from now, Jude is about today.
And Jude is kinda weird. But we’re living in weird times.
And speaking of weird, let me remind you here: the Bible is not weird. WE are weird, because we can’t quite make sense of all of these things in the book of Jude. But soon, we will. Thanks for listening, God bless you for sticking around until the end, and we’ll see you next time.