Contend for the Faith

Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people.

Jude 3

That word ‘contend’ that Jude uses in verse 3 was sometimes used to refer to the struggle between two wrestlers in ancient times.* It comes from a root word that means to enter a contest, fight or struggle.**

I don’t know if you realize it or not, but there is a struggle going on right now for the hearts and minds of believers. We are locked in battle with an Enemy who wants to turn Christians away from the truth of the gospel. And Jude reminds us that we have to fight. We have to contend and struggle to keep the content of what we believe and what we teach faithful to the Bible.

You see, Jude saw that Satan was trying to disarm God’s people. He was trying to wrestle the greatest weapon the Church has out its hands. And that weapon is the truth of the gospel, the sword of the Spirit. If Satan could take the sword of the Spirit out of our hands and replace it with the lies of this world… well, that would be like taking a soldier’s broadsword and replacing it a kid’s plastic sword! The church cannot fight Satan or his minions with lies. We can't beat back the hordes of Hell if all we are armed with is a cheap knockoff… a distortion of the gospel.

Sadly, that is exactly what many churches today are trying to do. These churches have believed the lie that they have to go along with popular opinion to reach people. They’ve believed the lie that we need to stop talking about sin in church and start talking about self-help and self-esteem. They’ve believed the lie that “if we will just give a little ground here and there to conform to popular opinion; then Christianity will be less objectionable to lost people and we’ll see more people get saved!” But that simply isn’t true. 

When you look at churches in America today, almost without exception, those churches who have thrown gospel truth out the window are not growing... they’re shrinking. And the reason why is simple. When the church thinks and believes just like the world does, then (ironically) it no longer has anything to offer the world and people no longer have any reason to come to church.

It’s our distinctness our differentness that makes the church matter in this world. It’s the fact that we are a light shining in the darkness that gives us worth. If we turn the light off and embrace the darkness, then we lose everything. If we lose our uniqueness, if we lose the message of the gospel, then we have nothing to offer a lost and dying world.

If we are to save the souls of men, then we must keep a firm grip on the truth. That is critical. That is key. And Satan knows this which is why in every age he works so hard to wrench the truth from our hands. And that is why we must always "contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people."

*Evangelical Commentary on the Bible: II Reason for Writing on Jude 2-3 in Logos Software

**Faithlife Study Bible on Jude 3