Gbenga 🧙‍♂️

The interpretations you would exclude for Jude 1:20 are largely dependent on your view of the charismatic gifts. Pentecostals are more likely to interpret it as praying in tongues because of the high view they have of the gift of the Spirit and its utilitarian benefit to the believer. It is why most people on the Pentecostal side who read Jude 1:20 naturally assume that as you pray in tongues you build yourself up. When Jude says to his audience to pray in the Holy Ghost, he doesn’t explain what he means by that and that’s probably because he assumes they know what it means to pray in the Holy Ghost. But 2,000 years later, Jude’s audience has exponentially multiplied and a good number of us need to have some sort of context provided to us. At this point I’ll like to point out that it’ll be very helpful to approach that passage without any sort of presupposition because then we risk losing out on a crucial treasure the passage is handing to us. And I’m more concerned about the Pentecostals when I say this because if you look at every passage with a ‘gifts only’ lens you will miss the obvious. In general that passage is an admonition to saints to earnestly contend for the faith that was handed over to the saints amidst the ridicule of scoffers and antinomians. Jude then outlines how in three broad points: 1. Building up yourselves in the faith 2. Praying in the Holy Ghost 3. Keeping yourselves in the love of God. To Jude, how to contend for the integrity of the faith handed over to the saints is by building yourself in it. I believe he is telling his audience to get properly acquainted with the faith they’re contending for. That they should know the articles of the faith so that they can gatekeep it against the nefarious contaminants sneaking into the company. This is more of an intellectual exercise because properly speaking you will be unable to contend for the faith if you do not know what the faith is that is why he admonishes his audience to build up themselves in the faith. Now when we Pentecostals say that by praying in the Holy Ghost we build our faith, what we’re saying is true in a narrow sense, but that isn’t a point Jude is making. Jude is saying get yourselves armed in the articles of your faith. There is an intellectual component of our faith, and it is our responsibility to build up our intellect with it. It is the same thing Peter meant when he says always be ready to give an answer. A believer who is not built up in this context would not be able to effectively contend for the faith in the midst of the surge of false teachers and traditions like the Hypergrace doctrine, which exchanges the grace of God for lasciviousness. As if he knew that there are people who will only focus on the intellectual aspect of the faith and neglect heartfelt prayer, he throws in the second instruction: pray in the Holy Ghost. Any understanding of praying in the Holy Ghost that excludes praying in tongues is an insufficient understanding of the term. The concept of praying by the Spirit’s help was not alien to the first-century church. They reported events where they prayed in other languages as the Spirit enabled them. They listened to sermons about the help of the Spirit in the place of prayer through groaning that cannot be uttered. So whatever a person may want to define praying in the Holy Ghost as, they’re not permitted to give it a definition that is inconsistent with the experience of the generation of that passage’s audience. Don’t forget the context; praying in the Holy Ghost is a means to an end; it is a means by which the believer is to contend for the faith that has been handed over to the saints; if we seek to pray according to the Spirit’s guidance, we cannot legitimately exclude praying in the Spirit.