Here’s another chant: James! 1st & 2nd
Peter! 1st, 2nd, 3rd John! Jude!
These epistles are called “general” because they are not
addressed to any particular local churches or individuals, but to the Church
universal. Also sometimes referred to as the “catholic” epistles, which means
universal. Practical instruction for the mostly Jewish Christians who were
dispersed throughout the world.
The writers of these general epistles were men who had known
Jesus intimately. Peter and John were among the first to leave their livelihood
behind and accompany Jesus in His earthly ministry. They were with Him in the
Garden of Gethsemane, at His crucifixion, at His resurrection and ascension.
All four of these men were assembled with the crowd in Jerusalem on the Day of
Pentecost, when the Church was born. James and Jude were Jesus’ own human half-brothers,
sons of Mary and Joseph. It is plain from the gospels that they didn’t
understand Jesus’ Messiahship until after His resurrection, but after that
event they became believers and leaders in the Church. These people knew the
Lord, spiritually, as we do, but also in His humanity as friends and family
members.
James is believed to be the earliest of the epistles
addressed to Jewish Christians. It stresses the practical ethics of the
Christian life and is less concerned with theology than Paul’s writings are. James
gives the characteristics of Christian growth to maturity: patience in testing, practice of the truth
(faith), control of the tongue, becoming peacemakers, prayerfulness in trouble.
Such characteristics demonstrate the faith of the believer as he grows in grace,
developing wisdom, which is the ability to see life from God’s perspective. We
don’t have to do it alone, indeed we cannot:
James 1:5 “If any of
you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all
without reproach, and it will be given him.”
James shows that if the believer is not demonstrating growth,
his faith is unproductive (“dead” James 2:26) and unrecognizable to others.
1st Peter was written to “aliens, scattered”
or, literally, “the sojourners of the dispersion.” These believers were
suffering as they lived faithfully in a pagan and hostile society. They were persecuted:
slandered, ostracized and oppressed because they believed in Jesus Christ. Peter
reminds them and us exactly Whose we are and how we should conduct ourselves
among the unbelievers:
I Peter 2:9 “you are a
chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people
for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who
called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”
2nd Peter teaches that the Christian’s
confident assurance is based on the knowledge of our Lord. Our protection
against false teachers is familiarity with the written Word of God.
2 Peter 3:17-18 “You
therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are
not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. But grow
in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be
the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.”
The Apostle John wrote 5 books in the New Testament: John’s
Gospel, 1st, 2nd and 3rd John and Revelation. He had
lived very close to Jesus in His incarnation and ministry. He also outlived all
the other apostles. That must have given him a lot of time to reflect on the
Person and Work of our Lord and to think about the doctrines of the Church.
1st John was written to believers about our
position IN CHRIST. We are members of God’s family. We have fellowship with one
another through our fellowship with the Father and the Son. John shows that the
method of remaining in fellowship with the Father and Son is to keep a close watch on our tendency toward personal sins. Fellowship means a common sharing of
faith and love. Though the believer’s position is IN CHRIST forever, when we do
commit personal sins it breaks our temporal fellowship with God. God knew we
would always have the Old Sin Nature as long as we lived in the flesh, so He
made a way for our daily cleansing from personal sins, through the continual
application of the Blood of Christ, which has paid that penalty in full:
I John 1:7-9 “But if
we (believers) walk in the light (knowledge
of God), as he is in the light, we
have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us (continues
to cleanse us) from all sin. If
we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If
we confess (homologeo – admit, name to God) our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
This is not renewed salvation, for we cannot lose our
salvation once we are IN CHRIST. It is a renewal of our fellowship with the
Father, as that of a disciplined child who acknowledges his father’s authority
and his father’s perfect love.
2nd John is about walking in Christ’s
commandments and rejecting false teachers.
2 John 8-9 “ Watch
yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may
win a full reward. Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the
teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has
both the Father and the Son.”
3rd John encourages hospitality to traveling
teachers and rebukes those who have shunned them, as the teachers go about
delivering the message of Jesus Christ.
3 John 7-8 “For they
have gone out for the sake of the name, accepting nothing from the
Gentiles. Therefore we ought to support people like these, that we may be
fellow workers for the truth.”
Jude, like 2nd & 3rd John,
consists of just one short chapter, but it really packs a punch. Even in the
earliest years of the Church, false teachers were infiltrating with their Gnosticism,
embellishing the truth with their mysticism and outright lies; confusing with
their legalistic arguments (“debaters”). I don’t like debaters about Biblical
truth. God’s Word is written. It is simple enough for common people to read and
understand; it is straightforward in its presentation of the Person and Work of
Jesus Christ. Anyone who twists and complicates God’s Perfect Plan into
something weird and esoteric is a false teacher with the intention of snaring
emotional and spiritually immature believers in a satanic trap.
Jude tells us that those false teachers can expect the same
fate as the demonic infiltrators of Genesis chapter 6:
Jude 8 “Yet in like
manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject
authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones.”
And Jude gives us this magnificent benediction to the Savior
and Keeper of our souls:
Jude 24-25 “ Now
to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless
before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the
only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty,
dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.”
And amen.
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