Jason Helopoulos

I think it's this, both Jude and James, what they are doing is they're saying, look, biological relation doesn't actually matter.

That's not what is important.

Rather, it is that we have faith and that we have come into saving relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, Lord and Master, as Jude calls Him here.

That's the only relation that actually matters.

It is not DNA.

Like James, Jude most likely became a believer after Christ's resurrection, and from then on, he did not see himself primarily as Jesus' brother.

He saw himself, as he says here, primarily as Jesus' servant.

That's how he sees himself, the servant of Jesus.

Now, servant is a word that many of you know that have been around the church for some period of time.

It is that Greek word doulos, and it has that range of meaning.

So, if you're looking at an ESV translation here today, it will have that word servant, and you understand that that works here.

You can translate it as servant.

It's in the range of meaning of this Greek word of doulos.

And the ESV, if you go to the beginning of ESV Bibles, especially their study Bibles, they'll have a whole section where they define why is it that they choose to use servant instead of slave in our context today, and you understand why they would.

But I think it takes away from what Jude is actually doing here.

When he identifies himself, he's identifying himself as a slave of Jesus Christ.

He went from brother of Jesus.

the slave of Jesus.

You think, well, that feels like a step backwards.

But it's not.