Bible Journaling: Book of Jude

In this second-to-last stop on our journey through the books of the Bible, we come across the book of Jude. We are going to look at some fun and interesting things about this book that will stir up our hunger for the Word and encourage us as we creatively journal through these pages.

For a broader view of this book of the Bible, we encourage you to watch this video: 

Bible journaling tip:

Now that we are nearing the end of our Bible Journaling journey, it is a good time to look back at the journaling tips we’ve done so far. If you did all 64 of the other tips, your Bible is probably bursting at the seams right now. A good solution for that problem is to take an envelope and write the years on it when you created those ‘creative responses to the text’. For example: 2019-2022 Bible Journaling by Anna. Clean out your Bible by storing some of your notes or artworks in the envelope instead. You can store this envelope somewhere safe like in your office, a bookshelf, or a photo album. Now, you have a clean slate to create new responses to the Bible when you read it.

LOOK UP: (information) encounter God through the Scripture 

Author:

Jude is one of Jesus’ brothers! He humbly introduces himself as a “servant of Jesus and a brother of James”, but since we know that James is Jesus’ brother it’s fairly obvious that Jude is actually a blood relative of Jesus too. A few of Jesus’ brothers didn’t believe that he was the Son of God, until after his resurrection… Jude was one of them.

Audience:

The audience is identified in the first verse as those who are 3 things: called, loved, and kept - see if you can find these words in your Bible and mark them. Now, look them up in different translations: like the Passion Translation, the Message translation, and the Easy-to-Read version. What do these descriptive words say about the audience Jude was written to? You can make notes about these in the margin of your Bible.

History:

The book of Jude includes a lot of references to other books of the Bible, and also one or two references to a different book called 1 Enoch. Remember that our Bible is a library - it is a combination of many books. This is also called a “canon”. You read more about how our Bible was made up here. It makes sense that not all the books about God and his people could be included - our Bibles only have 65 books and most modern Christians never read through all of them! 1 Enoch was one such book that didn’t make the cut. Perhaps because it repeated what other books said, or perhaps because it was seen as less credible. Either way, we encourage you to read or at least look at the book of 1 Enoch.

Genre:

The book of Jude is an epistle or a letter, like much of the New Testament. We can see some specific parts that are always part of a letter. Try to find these and mark them in your Bible: introducing the writer, greeting/blessing, purpose of the letter, sending regards, farewell.

LOOK IN (revelation): contemplate / reflect on our own lives

Key verse:

Jude 24-25 NIV

To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy— to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.

Inspiration:

In these verses we see the whole Gospel explained in one sentence. How would you answer if somebody asks you what your faith is all about? It can be a really difficult question to answer. When we memorize a Bible verse, it gives us the language we need to be able to defend our faith. Some helpful tools for memorizing include writing it out, putting it up somewhere you will see it often, or using a Scripture memorization app on your phone.

LOOK OUT(transformation): respond with creative worship action  

Drawing prompt:

Read verses 12-13 and see if you can identify the six images used to explain corrupt teachers. Fold a page into six squares and illustrate one of these on each piece. For example: Draw a sky full of rain with one “waterless cloud” in between the others. 

Bible Journey with HolyJot:

Here are some questions / prompts provided by the HolyJot community. 

• Explain what it means to contend for the faith, and list other passages about it.
• List 3 examples Jude reminds the people of in vv 5-7. Explain the point he is making.

Follow this link to dive into this book with an online Bible Study group.

Writing prompt:

How can we live faithfully as Christians? 
Write your thoughts down about this question. Include what this means for how we think, how we love, and how we live. Then, read how Jude encourages his readers to live faithfully in verses 20-23. If your answer missed any of the things that he mentions, you can add them now. Pray about the parts that you missed - did you just forget or is it perhaps a facet of the Gospel that you need new revelation about?

Prayer:

God, I want to thank you for the book of Jude. Your grace calls me to greater heights, and higher standards of living. Help me to become a person who responds with all that I am to the news of Your saving grace. Let my response to this text be worship unto you!