Jude identifies himself with James in his letter and not with Jesus. Why would he do that? Jude was not presumptuous. He did not want to put on an air of pride or elegance here and say, Well, you need to pay attention to me because I am a brother of Jesus. He did not at all approach his letter, his people, or his subject in this fashion. I think that is rather a lesson for us. There are some in the evangelical church today who kind of puff up their chest and say, I am a brother of Jesus and you need to take note of that. And there is a sense in which we are joined heirs with Christ, I would not deny that in the least. But there is also, if you look at Jude 1:1, this idea of our being servants of Jesus Christ. Jude, a bondservant of Jesus Christ and brother of James. The thing that Jude wanted to emphasize in his relationship with Jesus, was not that he was the brother of Jesus, but that he was the servant of Jesus. And isn't this the relationship that we ought to emphasize—that we are servants of Jesus Christ, and that he is the Lord and we are his followers. I think that is the relationship that we all ought to emphasize, and we all ought to be followers of Jesus Christ.¹

Dennis Prutow