Jude 1:3-4 - Homiletics

Error not to be trifled with, but to be earnestly dealt with.

"It was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith," etc. Least of all is the kind of error which acts upon the moral life to be lightly thought of or suffered to pass unchallenged. One of the most difficult, yet most imperative, of the Christian duties is to admonish and fortify brethren who are ready to yield to the seductions of error. The bond of a "common salvation" of which we are partakers together, pledges us to the discharge of such duty. The "faith" is the deposit of truth. The message of Christ is spirit and life. But the new spirit and the new life, in which the power of his gospel consists, rise out of the facts and truths of revelation, and work through these. To the Church universal, the whole body of believers, has been committed, therefore, a sacred deposit of truth, here called the faith, embracing evangelical history, doctrine, and precept. This body of truth is a permanent trust. It has survived the times of the Church's greatest declension, and by it she has lived. It is her chief advantage and distinction, as the possession of the "oracles of God" was the chief advantage of the Jew over the Gentile ( Romans 3:2 ). It is something delivered to us, not elaborated by our own thought. How great the responsibility attaching to our stewardship therein! The trustee's duty is to keep this deposit intact, to protect it against corruption, and to hand it on to others.