Undoubtedly, then, the word slave is here used metaphorically, as a description of the type of commitment that the author perceives himself as having toward Jesus who is the Christ (the Greek translation of the Hebrew/Aramaic mešiah (translated as Messiah, meaning anointed one or more accurately understood as one who is anointed by God for a special mission).89 Just as a slave is fully under the master’s ownership and lordship, Jude understands his place in this relationship as one where he is fully and wholly under Jesus’ lordship.
Given that slavery was not necessarily a desired status in the Greco-Roman world it is not necessarily an appealing self-descriptor. However, it was not uncommon for those who owned slaves to use them as spokespersons on their behalf. Such occasions vicariously infused the slave with vested authority by playing the role of a quasi vicegerent. By implication then, Jude is aware that slavery to Jesus brings a certain honor by association with the glorified Lord, while at the same time allowing him a semblance of humility.90 Parallels can be seen, in an Egyptian inscription where Primos and Ioukoundos, though described as “slaves of Caesar,” were highly regarded since they occupied the office of synagogue leader and president, and head of gymnasium, respectively:
In the 25th year of Caesar, on the 22nd of the month of Hathyr, at the assembly that occurred in Paratomos of the synod (synodos) of the god emperor Caesar Augustus, whose synagogue-leader (synagōgos) and president (prostatēs) is Primos, a slave of Caesar, and whose priest is Ioukoundos, a slave of Caesar, and whose head of the gymnasium is Alexandros, with most of the members assembled.”91
The same interplay between the honor and humility found in Jude is also present here. A biblical parallel is in Luke 14:15–24, depicting a parable of Jesus where the slave, acting on behalf of the master, is able to act violently against freepersons. The authority the slave exercises emanates not from himself, but from his master who invests him with authority.92
Besides connection with Jesus, Jude also claims to be a sibling of one with significant repute within the larger Christian community, and a leader of the church in Jerusalem—James (Acts 12:17; 15). Jude once again manages to stake a claim of authority while all the time retaining an air of humility.
The only difficulty with the title doulos (slave) would depend on the actual social status of those addressed. If they are freepersons, then the notion of addressing oneself as a slave, even metaphorically, may not endear the author to his audience. However, whose slave you are, may matter in such cases, just as we have seen in the examples above. One is bound to listen to an important person’s slave when the message communicated is understood to be, without doubt, from the master.93 Yet, it is also possible that the identity of doulos may have been deliberately chosen by Jude to challenge the false teachers’ self-perception as those with freedom to do whatever they wanted.
Overall, if Jude’s audience is—Gentile as the Byzantine Lectionary asserts—and if this is understood in light of v. 3 (our common salvation) where the author stresses the commonality of his faith with that of the recipients of the letter, it would suggest the possibility that he finds the need to identify with an audience that does not share a common heritage with him. For this reason, by finding the need to highlight the shared or common salvation, he intends to remove any doubt that may prevail among the readers about their place in God’s plan of salvation. In this regard, the likelihood would be that the author is of Jewish heritage whose close identification with a Jewish messiah figure (his self-identification as brother of James, and therefore, half-brother of Jesus puts him in a privileged position) whose intent is to make a conscious choice to identify with believers whose heritage puts them outside of this racial (or seeming privileged) relationship to Jesus.
Not only is the audience assured of this common salvation, but the author wants to ascertain this as a concrete commitment—it is secured by Jesus, the Messiah. This is an affirmation not only of the reliability of the security over time, but also the confidence of its ability to, always reliably, protect from any danger.
Fusing the Horizons: True Christian Identity
As an African, I am strongly aware of the fact that tribal identity is a central part of all African communities. Just like doulos (slave), the concept of “tribe” has negative connotations and has been used to denigrate African social structures in colonial and postcolonial discourse. I am fully aware of this but I choose to use the term anyway since it provokes similar reactions to doulos, and also it provides the parlance of the menacing “tribalism” (ethnocentrism), itself a byproduct of colonial construction, fully infused (for good or ill) into the psyche and language of the Kenyan community. Tribes have for millennia provided the structure of the society, safeguarded the cultural elements and preserved the languages of the communities. Tribes have played (and continue to play) a central role in shaping the identity of individuals in Africa. Thanks to the colonial borders, however, African countries have had to confront the centrality of the tribal identity as it has stood in direct conflict with national identity. As nationhood (ideology) has been placed before tribalism (bloodline), the struggle to restructure African communal identity has ensued.
Similar to early Christian converts’ Christian-Pagan identity struggles, the church in Africa has been plagued with competing identities making for challenging situations for the individual Christians. In the African church, age-old tribal identities and allegiances continue to provide some of the stiffest challenges for Christian converts.94 For example, during the ensuing post-election violence in Kenya, driven in many respects by tribalism (as well as political reasons), one of the most disheartening scenes was when a church, full of women and children of one tribe seeking refuge from violence, was set ablaze by a marauding mob of a neighboring tribe, killing most of the people within.95 Among the perpetrators, identified by some of the survivors, were neighbors whose identities as members of Christian communities was known. How could people identifying themselves with the Church participate in such violence? One possible culprit in such a case would be the assumption that the Christian identity, despite its presence in the country for more than two hundred years, never quite took root enough to overcome the tribal identity as the primary identity.
Jude’s restructuring of his identity vis-a-vis the person of Jesus, provides a useful lesson on this matter. Jude, while he could have chosen to use the bloodline (brother of Jesus) to construct his identity, instead chooses to identify himself as a slave of Jesus (a theological construction). Jude prioritizes his theological identity over what perhaps others would have preferred, the bloodline that would have given him more claim to authority as a sibling of the Lord. Instead, by not only downplaying the use of biological identity as his primary one, and instead using a theological identity that also embraces a deep humility, he aligns himself with Paul who cautions that in Christ old things have ceased and all things are made new, and we can no longer regard each other on the basis of blood (flesh) (2 Cor 5:16–17).
What seems like a subtle and somewhat insignificant move by Jude thus turns out to be a most crucial element that converts to Christianity must emulate. This was what the rest of the Kenyan church community’s reaction evidenced, as it led the mobilization of assistance for all the displaced victims of the violence, irrespective of tribal or religious affiliation, and sought to establish a Truth and Reconciliation commission.96 True Christian identity should incorporate and transform, without eradicating, all other forms of identity one may possess.
Contending for the Inherited Faith, Against Infiltrators (vv. 3–4)
3Beloved, I am earnestly making this writing to you concerning the common salvation we share, being compelled to write you and encourage/urge you to contend for the faith handed down to the saints/holy ones, once for all.
Jude uses an endearing term, beloved (also in v. 17 and v. 20), to address his readers as a way of either identifying an already close relationship with them, or perhaps in an attempt to seeking that closer tie. In terms of ancient rhetoric, this is his establishment of an ethos (trustworthy character) that should then establish his credibility to be able to address his audience with authority.97 This is in-keeping with early Christian communities to construct their communities as “families” with fictive kingship (1 Cor 4:14; 2 Cor 7:1; Phil 4:1; 1, 2, 3 John; 1 Peter 2, etc.). He elaborates this further with his reference to the shared bond of salvation (koinos soteria) in order