³Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints.

The Christian movement has long battled efforts to destroy, undercut, neutralize, and otherwise eliminate the powerful, transforming truth about God’s grace. It began with God coming into the world as the incarnate Son:

And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)

Yet we read God’s assessment: “He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him” (John 1:11). This rejection began shortly after Jesus’ birth, when Herod, the reigning but insecure king in Judea, tried to kill the infant Christ child (see Matt. 2:16) by terrorizing and killing all the infants and toddlers in Bethlehem who were two years old and younger. Later came opposition from the religious leaders, who resisted Jesus during his active ministry for three-plus years and condemned him to execution on the cross. His teaching focused on God’s love and forgiveness, both manifestations of grace, which threatened the Pharisees because of their rigid, hypocritical adherence to the Mosaic Law. And so they killed the One who brought grace.

The opposition to God’s grace continued as the apostles spread the message. Throughout the book of Acts we see persecution exploding against the Christian movement, beginning with the stoning of Stephen, the first martyr (Acts 7:54–60), and continuing with the full-out harassment of Christians (Acts 8:1–3). In the supreme irony of the Christian movement, Saul of Tarsus, the man who was most responsible for this first outbreak of murderous opposition to the gospel of grace and to the church, was himself converted on the road to Damascus (Acts 9). Through his evangelistic efforts, he became God’s primary catalyst for spreading the message throughout the Roman world. We know him better by the name Paul, the apostle. He was hounded for the rest of his life by those incensed with his teaching about Jesus Christ and grace, by the Jewish legalists, and by the prevailing idol-worshiping culture.

Core to apostolic ministry was preparing Christians for ongoing opposition so they would be ready to deal with it when it comes. Jude’s letter is about this very thing. But what Jude addresses is not the undermining of grace through legalism, but the distortion of grace as a license for immoral, unrestrained living.

Lord, help me be prepared to identify wrong thinking and to live rightly.