Contend for the faith… I’ve been wrestling with this verse all week. That’s kind of funny because the Greek word for “contend” has an athletic connotation to it. Wrestle. Fight. Struggle. It seems there is much of that everywhere I look.
It’s easy to stumble across verses like this and misinterpret them as a clarion call to declare war against those outside the faith. That wasn’t Jude’s intent. His warning and call to action was to fight for the faith within the church. As we read the rest of the verse we see an implication staggering to our modern, enlightened minds. Stating that the Christian faith was “delivered to the saints once for all” is a bold claim that God’s truth doesn’t change. It says there was a message delivered by Jesus in the early 30s AD and that message has not changed.
By the time Jude was writing this just a few decades later, there were people inside the church claiming to have new interpretations, revelations, and applications of God’s truth. They claimed that truth changes with the time and culture. They claimed God adapts to each generation. They claimed that if Jesus were ministering on earth today, His message would be similar, but different. What Jude knew and what we must realize is that those outside the church will always disagree with the believers. That’s to be expected. Although our deep desire is for them to agree with us, our methods are different than wrestling and “contending.” But when those inside the faith begin to undermine and distort God’s truth…that’s when we are called to contend.
And so Jude’s clarion call was for those inside the church to wrestle with God’s timeless truths. We are to recognize that His truth never changes and the redemptive work Jesus left for His followers is the exact same as the day He ascended. And the beauty of it is that we aren’t called to quell conversation. We aren’t called to fight using the weapons of this world, but with grace and without compromise. Each generation brings relevant challenges which need to be fleshed out anew in a way that refines our understanding but will never undermine it. This is precisely what has happened countless times over the years, from the Jerusalem Council in Acts to the Council of Nicaea, the Council of Chalcedon, and countless others.
Jude’s challenge is a call to be both wise and humble with our discernment, carefully and intentionally train others in the skill and art of Scripture Interpretation and Godly living, so that when we are gone the faith that was delivered to the saints once for all will continue to be in good hands. If our most precious beliefs were given once for all, it is our duty to diligent seek the timeless Biblical truths that apply to all people in all places at all times, today, yesterday, and tomorrow. Every claim about our faith must meet this standard, and if it does we must contend for it to remain treasured and undistorted.