In the community of the first century, Christians faced two basic problems. The first was the problem of persecution against Christians and for the Jewish believers it would come from both the pagans in the Roman Empire as well as from certain Jews within the Jewish community who rejected Jesus’ claims to be the Messiah. The second area of conflict was within the church. Outside the church was the problem of persecution; inside the church was the problem of false doctrine.
Believers at that time lived within a pluralistic society in Rome where there were many different religious beliefs, a number of different religious systems that came from not only traditional Greco-Roman religions, but also from ideas that were synthesized from outside the Greco-Roman culture. So there was a challenge to Christians to stand firm in the faith, as the apostle Paul had warned them as well, and so the message of Jude is to contend for the faith.
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