Being a Contentious Christian

Jude 1:16

Introduction

Have you ever encountered a belief or a position that you strongly disagreed with? It may be a religious, political, ethical or even an artistic difference. There is more than just an intellectual disagreement, there is almost a physical reaction. What do you do?

The truth is that there are battles worth fighting and battles that are not worth fighting. I suspect that much of the problems of our society is that we fight on the secondary issues when we need to be focusing on the primary issues. This is true in the church as well.

Even when we are fighting the right issues, there are wrong ways to fight. When I do premarital counselling with couple about to be married, I don’t tell them not to fight. Rather I give guidance on how to fight, the dos and don’ts of what a healthy fight looks like.

What about us as Christians? When do we fight and what does that fight look like? We need to go to the Bible for guidance. And the person we are going to is Jude. Jude is not as well known as some of the other biblical writers and his letter is one of the shortest but he is still important. Jude, along with James, was one of the half-brothers of Jesus. Like James he didn’t approve of Jesus’ earthly ministry but was changed after the resurrection. Although much in this letter is strange, there is some very practical advice on how to live out our faith.

Called to Contend

We may think of Christians as people who should just mind their own business. We need to keep to ourselves and not rock the boat. But Jude calls us to a different way.

Jude calls us to contend for the faith. If someone said to you that you are contentious person, you would probably take it as an insult. And rightfully so as it can be annoying when a person is contentious about every little thing. But Jude doesn’t call us to be contentious in general but to contend for the faith. What is “the faith”? Sometimes faith means just trust. This is what we mean when we are going through a hard time and we remind ourselves to trust Jesus. But in this context, it is both the intellectual and moral truth of the Christian faith. Christianity is not less than but it is differently more than just loving Jesus. While there are plenty of room for disagreements, there are certain areas that we can look at and discern whether that is reflecting faith in Jesus or is a corruption of that faith.

While there is a place for us to interact with other faith systems, that is not what Jude is talking about here. He speaks specifically about people who have come in from the outside and who are perverting the grace of God. It is not about disagreeing with people in a synagogue or a mosque but taking seriously what is happening in the church.

There are certain things of the Christian faith that are true and non-negotiable. We are not to contend on everything we internally disagree about, but we need to be prepared to contend for the things that matter. But what does that contending look like?

We find that Jude brings up the word “contend” again a little later in his letter. It is a story about the archangel Michael contending with the devil. This is a strange story, one that is not found elsewhere in the Bible and if you are like me, you would like to know the details. All we can say is that Jude is describing a conflict between Michael and the devil over Moses’ body. It seems like the devil wants to claim the body but Michael won’t let him. Again, we would really like to know what was going on. What we see is that Michael uses restraint in his conflict. Michael avoids a condemnation of slander. What is interesting is that the title (it is not a name) devil actually means slanderer. Condemning the devil for slandering would have been to join the devil in that level of conflict. Instead, Michael takes the higher road and rebukes him in the name of the Lord. Jude says here, what Paul says elsewhere in his letters, that we need to contend for the truth but we need to be careful how we do it. We are to do it not the devil’s terms but on the Lord’s.

Contending Today

I always want to ask what this means for us today. So what if Jude called some people thousands of years ago to contend?

We, like those early Christians, have been entrusted with a collection of intellectual and moral truth. There is a time for us to contend for the faith. Let me be clear, it is not about forcing our faith on others who are not interested. That is not what Jude is saying. But when people who have entered the church begin to twist it for their own purposes, that is not something that we can just accept passively. I’m not talking about attacking people who have different tastes in worship music or other differences in style. There are even some theological differences that the church has agreed to disagree on.

But I have seen even recently, Christians attempting to use the Bible to attack those who are standing up against racism. This is a core part of our faith. The New Testament clearly teaches equality of all in Christ and yet churches have both promoted and tolerated racism, supposedly on biblical grounds. It is not just racism. I was once writing about the needs of standing up for people with disabilities. A person rebuked me, saying that an evangelical Christian has no business standing up for disability rights because that is part of the “liberal agenda.” I have had other Christians warn me about speaking out for the poor, even though that seemed to be a large part of Jesus’ message.

I will tell you that I want to respond in a harsh manner. I want to stoop to their level. I want to meet the devil on the devil’s terms, slander for slander. But God, through the words of Jude, calls us to a different way. 

I will give you an example of something I have told many of you before. At my previous church in a different community, there was a religion author who wrote a book stating that Jesus never existed. I was warned by a fellow pastor in that town to not respond and to not even talk about it. But Jude says contend for the faith. The author self-identified as a Christian and even had been an ordained minister and had taught at a Christian seminary. I co-wrote a book in response. I tried to be proactive, since we both lived in the same small town, by contacting him and explaining my reasons for writing the book. He sent me a number of harsh emails and I wanted to respond in kind. But I forced myself to not stoop and to stay as kind as possible. The book came out and he hated it. But one of the main criticisms we received from other Christians was that we were too nice. I took it as a complement. I was not perfect during that interaction and I have made mistakes since then. But looking back, it felt like the right fight done in the right way.

Conclusion

We need to be contentious Christians. By that I do not mean that we have to criticize every little thing that we disagree with. We need to contend for the things that are central to the faith. We need to contend for who Jesus is and how we treat each other. We need to speak for theological truth and speak against injustice. We have been entrusted with a faith that is worth fighting for.

The scary thing is that even if we contend for the right things, the devil can still win. The slanderer wants us to stoop to his level. He wants us to throw compassion and sensitivity out the window and fight in such a way that even if we win the battle, we lose the war. Jude warned about those who perverted the grace of God. If we are not careful, in our zeal we too can pervert the grace of God. Truth and love embracing is the only way to go.