What Does the Text Mean?

The main section of Jude's letter is a comparison of the ways God treated those who abused His grace and resisted His Lordship in Old Testament history to the "certain people who had crept in unaware." Jude's main point gets clearer: those who pervert the grace of God have always been under God's just condemnation, as is true of these false teachers. We begin to see the real danger of "hidden reefs" and consider what these hidden reefs might look today. The second phase of Bible study is Interpretation, or determining what the Bible means. As we read Jude 11-16, we also consider six key principles of interpretation to guide our understanding of Scripture: (1) let the author speak, (2) keep it in context, (3) read the Bible literally while allowing for figurative language, (4) let Scripture interpret Scripture, (5) let the clear guide the unclear, and (6) read the Bible in Christian community.