True to our native land, p.105
True to Our Native Land, page 105
Covert infiltration of false teachers among the readers occasions the writing of Jude. Jude describes these teachers using masculine language to reveal the nature of their activities as libertines. These condemned persons use the grace of God as a license for all sorts of debauchery while denying the God who provides them with grace.
5–16, Exemplars of Negative Destruction
In vv. 5–7 Jude reminds the addressees of their awareness of several Old Testament motifs on the destruction of three aberrant communities as negative exemplars: (1) the Hebrew community of the exodus were forbidden entrance into the promised land because of unbelief and faithlessness; (2) the community of fallen angels await destruction after being banished from heaven; and (3) the communities of Sodom and Gomorrah await “the punishment of eternal fire” (1:7c). These serve to remind the readers of those who once thought they were safe in their unrighteousness but nonetheless found themselves destroyed and awaiting further punishments of the Great Day because they “did not believe” (5c).
In vv. 8–13, following the three negative exemplars, Jude turns immediately to additional examples—Cain, Korah, and, indirectly, Balaam’s error—to depict further the destruction of the false teachers. “These men” represent the antagonists of the epistle, the false teachers. They employ dreams or apocalyptic visions as their source of authority, which they use to deceive Jude’s readers. Both false and true prophets/teachers are known for their dreams and visions; the difference between them is seen by the outcome—whether or not the dream or vision took place.
These false teachers are wreaking havoc on the community of faith, as suggested by the book of Jude. They use their authority to stain, defile, and divide the community. Verse 8 suggests the behavior and message of the false teachers: they defile the community, reject authority, and insult the glorious ones. Their teachings corrupt the flesh through sexual immorality, seek to persuade the readers to reject God-given authority, insult the angels who watch over the saints. For this, Jude condemns, rebukes, and pronounces eternal doom on them.
Jackleg Preachers
“It was not until the Revolution that Black preachers were recognized by the denominations. Previously they were recognized by their own people and exercised what was later called ‘jackleg’ ministries whenever opportunity was given and the slaves were able to assemble under their leadership.”
Jackleg preachers should not be confused with false teachers/preachers because the jackleg preachers often were the only source for prophetic truth-telling, speaking truth to power.
—Gayraud S. Wilmore, Black Religion and Black Radicalism: An Interpretation of the Religious History of African Americans, 3rd ed. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1998), 28.
In vv. 14–16, Jude continues a terse assault on the behavior of the false teachers and their teachings, suggesting that Enoch, a member of the seventh generation after Adam, prophesied against them. Enoch’s message is harsh and detailed, calling for a sure judgment and retribution on all who mislead others and profit from such. Enoch’s negative characterization reveals some of the destructive actions and words that might have been active within the community of faith that Jude is addressing. Like the Hebrews who murmured in the wilderness, these false teachers’ actions and words remind the readers of the result of the grumbling and fault finding of the followers of Moses, which resulted in God’s promise of the land flowing with milk and honey being denied to a rebellious people.
17–23, Rebuking Rocks, Building up Beliefs
Jude returns to encourage the readers of this epistle but continues to provide a negative characterization of the false teachers. Jude instructs the reader to recall Jesus’s apostles’ predictions of the end-times (cf. 1 Tim 4:1–5). Jude further characterizes the “scoffers” as “propelled by their ungodly desires,” “divisive,” “worldly,” and “devoid of the Spirit” (vv. 18–19). These false teachers’ actions are portrayed as lacking inner grace and godly direction. In such a disposition, Jude instructs the readers of their nature and their desire to destroy the community of faith. Jude urges that they must be rejected and avoided at all costs.
In stark contrast to these false teachers’ characterization, Jude returns to his initial appellation of endearment (“dear friends”), placing him again on the levels of the readers. Jude exhorts the readers to stand fast in their faith despite the attack from without by these false teachers. He urges them to build up a most holy faith, to continue to pray in the Holy Spirit, to keep themselves in the love of God, all while awaiting the Lord’s mercy. In the last lines of the body to the letter, Jude alludes to the fact that the false teachers have had some results: some of the readers waver in the faith, others have left the community, and others require mercy. Even so, Jude instructs the readers to rescue those who have fallen away because of the divisive work of the false teachers.
24–25, Doxologies
Jude concludes with a final blessing that offers further encouragement and inspiration. He assures the readers that God can keep them from falling to the devices of the false teachers. Not only can God do that, but also God can help them to stand among any foe, from within and outside the faith community. Moreover, God can present them without blemished before God’s glorious presence (v. 24). To aid the reader in their final celebration of God’s working grace, Jude identifies the Savior, Jesus Christ, as the God who is the one to receive glory, majesty, power, and authority forever for all of God’s saving works of grace (v. 25).
Realizing God`s Intentions
“More portentous was black people’s indomitable and indefatigable determination and resolve to secure those benefits, and more, to respond to a higher calling and voice than those circumscribed by the limits of human transience and national interests. Some black Americans sought ever to be responding to and with the One who created peoples and nations, and so desired to ascertain and realize the divine intent for purposeful human existence in the created order. Maria W. Stewart was one of those persons.”
—Clarice J. Martin, “Normative Biblical Motifs in African-American Women Leaders’ Moral Discourse: Maria Stewart’s Autobiography as a Resource for Nurturing Leadership from the Black Church Tradition,” in The Stone that the Builders Rejected: The Development of Ethical Leadership from the Black Church Tradition, ed. Walter E. Fluker (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1998), 48.
Notes
1. Since the real flesh-and-blood author is unknown, I will refer to Jude as the implied author.
2. Richard Bauckham, Jude and the Relatives of Jesus in the Early Church (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1990).
3. The Testament of Moses, an apocryphal story concerning the death of Moses. See, for example, vv. 4–6.
4. For contrary positions, see, for example, J. N. D. Kelly, The Epistles of Peter and Jude (London: Black, 1969), and Michael Green, The Second Epistle General of Peter and the General Epistle of Jude (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1988).
5. For the typical parts of the New Testament letter, see the sidebar at 1 Peter 1:1–2.
6. See, for example, Joel Chandler Harris (1848–1908), “Uncle Remus Initiates the Little Boy,” in The Oxford Anthology of American Literature, edited by William Rose Benét and Norman Holmes Pearson (New York: Joel Chandler Harris, 1938), 1979–80.
For Further Reading
Bauckham, Richard. Jude and the Relatives of Jesus in the Early Church. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1990.
Green, Michael. The Second Epistle General of Peter and the General Epistle of Jude. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1988.
Kelly, J. N. D. The Epistles of Peter and Jude. London: Black, 1969.
Neyrey, Jerome H. 2 Peter, Jude. ab 37C. New York: Doubleday, 1993.
Richard, Earl J. 1 Peter, Jude, and 2 Peter: A Literary and Theological Commentary. Macon, GA: Smyth and Helwys, 2000.
Revelation
Brian K. Blount
Introduction
Revelation reads like a piece of contemporary “pulp fiction.” Plot movement is as consequential as narrative content. John of Patmos’s letter writing and storytelling do not move in a straight line. This apocalyptic director starts in the middle of the story (chap. 1), gives multiple peeks at the arrival of the end time from three unique camera angles (seventh seal, seventh trumpet, seventh bowl), flashes back to the beginning of the story in the middle of the narrative (chaps. 12–14), then pushes to a wondrous end (chaps. 20–21), the approach to which he has already horrifically screened three times (seals, trumpets, and bowls, chaps. 1–6).
Chapters 12–14 constitute the beginning of John’s apocalyptic story. Everything in the plot receives its motivation from what happens here. A reader cannot truly appreciate why the seer writes with such passion—and sometimes venom—without knowing how his church came to be in the circumstance that now threatens to devour it. A predator is on the loose in human history— a mad, mythological snake that has the church in the grip of its fangs and is, even as John writes, pumping a deadening poison into its spirit. Chapter 12 also introduces the people of God in the mythological form of a celestial woman clothed with the sun. About to give birth to a Messiah who will lead her people, she writhes in pain even as she cowers before the great red serpent, a dragon who waits to savage the child as soon as it is born. But when the child is delivered to new life on a Golgotha cross, the dragon, who is Satan in disguise, is outmaneuvered. The infant is snatched (i.e., resurrected) to the heavens, where war has broken out. The archangel Michael, leading God’s angelic forces, ousts and exiles Satan from the heavenly realm onto the historical plane. On earth, no longer able to hunt the Messiah, the dragon seeks out the other children of the woman, the church. Knowing that it cannot operate alone, it seeks a surrogate, a beast it possesses and calls up from the chaos of the sea. The beast is Rome, the imperial force that sought to make itself the ruler of humankind and the plotter of human destiny. Rome and its Caesar desired to be worshiped as Lord and Savior and in so doing denied the rightful worship due exclusively to God and God’s Messiah. Rome drew upon the assistance of another beast, the landed aristocracy and ruling class of Asia Minor, where John’s churches were located. The Asia Minor officials demanded that all in their cities show proper worship of Rome, Rome’s Caesar, and the gods of the Roman cult. Those who did not so worship were guaranteed loss of social standing, loss of economic prosperity, and perhaps even loss of life. It is at just this point that John picks up the story at chap. 1.
John’s narrative is about the single revelation that comes through the many visions that populate his book. The revelation is clear and simple: Jesus Christ is Lord. This is the message that Jesus himself bore all the way to and through the cross. It is the message that John conveys in chap. 1, when he discloses Christ as a cosmic figure who walks with his churches and sustains them through every trial. It is the message the members of John’s seven churches are called to bear and to live even in the midst of a circumstance where Rome and Rome’s surrogate forces demand an exclusive worship of Rome instead.
In John’s powerful chaps. 2 and 3, he demands that his Christ-believers become Christ-witnesses. He writes in the last decade of the first century, when Domitian is emperor, knowing that many are beginning to blend themselves into the Roman cultic, political, economic, and social landscape, and he charges them to remain defiantly and openly loyal to Christ alone. Anything they do that might suggest they condone a belief in the lordship of some other figure, anything like eating meat sacrificed to a Roman god, goddess, or Caesar at a social or trade gathering, was condemned as an idolatrous act of prostitution to a false, foreign faith. Only those who resist such accommodation to Roman ways of social and religious life can expect an eschatological relationship with God at the end of time. John demands that his people resist the fear of what they might lose in this life because of their witness to the lordship of Christ and focus instead on what they would gain in the new life that awaits them in eternity, the life he will describe so majestically in chaps. 21–22 as a new heaven and a new earth, where God dwelt directly with God’s people.
Knowing that his people fear the draconian power of Rome, John shares his vision of God’s power and grandeur. He sees the throne room in heaven (chap. 4); sees God majestically perched upon it, surrounded by the perpetual accolade of cosmic creatures and great angels; sees twenty-four elders who represent the believing peoples of the twelve tribes and twelve apostles; and beholds with awe an executed but still standing Lamb at God’s side. This Lamb holds title to the book that bears the truth and meaning of all history (chap. 5). This Lamb is the child Messiah in chap. 12.
While this vision is helpful, John knows that it is not enough to convince his people to stand fast before the bestial pressures of Rome. His people need to know that God not only sits above them but stands among them, ready to engage their enemy and fight on their behalf. And so John also shares his vision of heavenly souls who have, like the Lamb, been executed because of their testimony to the Lamb’s lordship. They cry out for God’s justice against those who have butchered them. John wants his people to know that God responds—with a vengeance.
In three separate scenes that really play out simultaneously, the Lamb’s breaking of the seals (6:1—8:1), the angels’ blowing of the trumpets (8:2—11:19), and the angels’ pouring of the devastating bowls (15:1—16:21), John conveys the vicious judgment that God rends upon a world that has idolatrously turned away from God and persecuted those who have not. The destruction is catastrophic, because the draconian forces of Rome and Asia Minor fight back against God and God’s people. The resulting apocalyptic conflict is so consummate that everyone, even creation itself, is caught up in it. God does not “rapture” God’s own people out of the devastation. They suffer in but through the conflict, washing their clothes to a sparkling sheen in the blood of the Lamb as they do (7:9–17). The end result will be God’s conquest of the dragon’s forces (chaps. 17–19) and the eventual defeat and termination of the dragon itself (20:1–15). With even death destroyed, eternal life parades into a scene so glorious that John describes it as a cosmic wedding in a brilliant new city whose name is Jerusalem, but whose heritage is Eden. This Eden, not death, is the lot of those who witness to the lordship of God and God’s Christ. This is eternal relationship with God. This is salvation. This is the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Chapter 1
1:1–3, The Revelation of Jesus Christ
John wrote about the stripping (revelation) of Jesus Christ.1 This revelation conjures the image of Jesus’s crucifixion, where he was stripped naked and hung out to die. But then the image of weakness is transformed. Ultimately, this revelation isn’t something someone did to Jesus; it is what Jesus did to reveal something important to everyone else. While being humiliated by hostile authorities and executed on the cross, Jesus, it turns out, stripped world history and human reality bare by clarifying something that was heretofore apparently obscure: he revealed who really is in charge.
Enslaved African Americans instinctively understood this irony about Jesus. On the one hand, they recognized the shameful horror of his death. Like him, they were weak and helpless. “Were you there,” they asked in spiritual sadness, “when they crucified my Lord?” “Yes,” was the implicit answer. And yet they sensed the revelation. The same folk sang, “Ride on King Jesus! No man can hinder him.”
John wrote a prophecy. His focus, though, was not on future foretelling but on present preparation. He wrote about what was coming soon (1:1, 3) in the hope that his people would respond properly to that revelation in the present. The enslaved sang about the coming of God’s judgment and glory in the hope that it would encourage contemporary resistance and endurance.
Beatitudes in Revelation
The book of Revelation has beatitudes in 1:3; 14:13; 16:15; 19:9; 20:6; 22:7; 22:14. John uses the first of his seven beatitudes to declare that whoever took these words and kept them would be blessed. The best way to keep a testimony is to live it. Revelation’s beatitudes are apocalyptic beatitudes that focus on future expectation with hopes for present transformation in behavior.
Many contemporary African Americans remain focused on prophetic resistance and endurance against ongoing systemic racism, particularly as revealed in the unjustified police killings of unarmed Black men and women that spawned the Black Lives Matter and SayHerName movements. This violence, many critics argue, is itself revelatory of the broader inequities African Americans face in key areas of American life, e.g., health care, housing, employment, and access to higher education.
Spirituals: Resistance Music
“The existence of these songs is in itself a monument to one of the most striking instances on record in which a people forged a weapon of offense and defense out of a psychological shackle. By some amazing but vastly creative spiritual insight the slave undertook the redemption of a religion that the master had profaned in his midst.”
