Key Verse: Verse 16 – “These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men's persons in admiration because of advantage."
Key Words: great swelling words
Jude is teaching about false teachers who carry with them the ability to persuade men through their words. Jude calls them great swelling words.
As a boy growing up we had a couple of hunting dogs which I had the responsibility of feeding. We weren’t rich by any stretch of the imagination, so dad would buy these 50-pound bags of dog food which were filled with little round bits of something (only the Lord knows what this dog food really was). But since we had a very limited budget, dad would have me fill a small bucket full of this food, and soak it in water for about a half-hour or so. Amazingly, these small bits would swell up to three times their normal size. Now the truth is the dogs were only getting about two pounds of food, but it sure looked like it was about ten pounds because the food was swollen so.
So it is with the false teachers with their great swelling words. It may sound good, but when you get past all the fluff there’s nothing to do. I call it cotton candy theology: a lot of puff and fluff without any real stuff (fluff with no substance).
While we become excited about a person’s style and presentation, that matters little. It only matters if they speak the truth in love. Amen!?
What to do:
✞ Ask God to grant you wisdom to know the difference between fluff and that which is the real stuff.
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