These are the grumblers and malcontents; they indulge their own lusts; they are bombastic in speech, flattering people to their own advantage.
This short letter from Jude was intended to be a letter about the common salvation believers shared, quickly turned into a letter about false teaching. Given the theme of false teaching in these later short letters, it must have been a big problem.
Jude describes these interlopers as people who were grumblers and malcontents. They indulged in their own lusts, and flattered people only for their own advantage. I appreciate this concrete way of understanding false teachers. I have known people who are malcontent, who are bombastic in speech and flatter people for their own advantage. I’ve known people in the church who do these things.
Jude is not talking about how these people speak about God, or Scripture. He’s simply pointing out some personal traits that are incompatible with people who are true teachers.
I believe Scripture is the living word; through the Holy Spirit, it breathes and moves and is relevant to us, thousands of years after it was written. I believe Jude’s warnings should be heeded now too. I know people how are mal-content or not content. I know people who are bombastic. I know people who flatter for their own benefit.
What Jude is saying is that if this is what is in their soul, if this is who these people are, then what they say about religion and God may be false; it comes from an inner spirit that is not full of life and love.
We all have bad days; we can all be grumblers. What’s the difference between a person of faith who’s having a bad day and a false teacher who’s malcontent? Can I genuinely spot the difference?
What if we took a hard look at all of the leaders who have faith (political, social, religious, cultural)? What if we used this as the measuring stick against which to measure false and true teachers? What messages would we silence? What would remain? I hope that what would remain would be love and light, justice and mercy.
This morning, I’m thinking about how to identify and discard the messages in modern day that come from false teachers, as Jude describes them. Being able to do that might silence much of the noise in our world.
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