Such is the brevity of Jude’s letter that it may well have been simply a sermon outline, sent out from the Jerusalem headquarters to Church elders at large for them to expand and expound, verse by verse as we are attempting here.

Jude’s message is not addressed to a particular church, but to believers everywhere, those who have been called by God -- a metaphor that Jesus explains when he compares himself to a shepherd and his true disciples to his flock, saying: "The sheep hear his voice . . . and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice" (John 10.4-5).

Those disciples do not follow Jesus because of clever arguments or historical facts about his life – but because they somehow hear his voice in their hearts, calling to them through the busy hubbub of life – and respond to it like sheep to a shepherd and become part of his flock.

Jude begins by reminding this called-out group that they are sanctified by God – meaning made holy , chosen or set apart for a holy purpose, and so expected to conform to appropriate standards of personal morality in their daily lives.

Perhaps this is why the apostle Peter, in his parallel attack on the same false teachers, also exhorts Christians to live up to their calling, saying: "Do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be you holy in all you do; for it is written: ‘Be holy, because I am holy’" (1 Peter 1:14-15).

Having apparently intended to write a routine pastoral letter, Jude says that it became urgently necessary, probably because of worrying reports he had recently received, to write and exhort Christians everywhere to get back to the original faith – the true faith, the set of basic teachings that was once for all entrusted to the saints.

But who were these early saints, the same group of believers to whom the apostle Paul habitually addressed his epistles?

Even today, many people mistakenly assume the saints to be a special category of super-righteous individuals. However, the three words commonly applied to Christians in the New Testament -- saint, holy and sanctified – all derive from the same Greek root, hagios, as also used in the phrase Holy Spirit.

Every true Christian, having received the Holy Spirit of God, is sanctified by it, is a saint, and should be holy in his or her daily life.

Perhaps it was because this false belief in the existence of super-holy "saints" was already gaining ground that Jude speaks, rather oddly, of the common salvation – for what other kind of salvation is there? His point is that salvation is salvation is salvation – and is common to all Christians, be they the apostles who walked and talked with Jesus in person, or the most newly converted member of the Church.

Peter makes a very similar comment to Jude in his own letter, saying: "To them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God" (2 Peter 1:1).

The unfortunate implication of the un-scriptural belief in "saints" as a separate group of believers seems to be that whereas God may demand very high moral standards of them, much less is expected from "ordinary", rank and file Christians.

Such was the success of the false teachers in inducing many believers to accept this counterfeit form of faith that Jude was compelled to write with great urgency to the Church at large to exhort them to earnestly contend for the original, genuine faith which was once for all entrusted unto the early saints, the first disciples of Christ.

When he urges Christians to earnestly contend for the original faith, Jude is apparently employing a sporting metaphor – comparing the commitment required to that of a boxer contending for a title, like an ex-champion fighting desperately to recover his crown.

Struggle manfully, says Jude, get up off the canvass and fight with all you might to recover the true faith – the basic set of beliefs by which a true disciple of Jesus Christ orders his or her daily life.