Day 7 – Enoch

Jude only has one chapter, so “14-19” is just verses, before you panic!

• Well, we’re at day 7, and we’re one week down! Today you might finally be reading something you haven’t really read before. This is a different sort of reading challenge. On previous days, the challenge was to not skim over text you thought you knew. Today, the challenge is to understand and consider stuff that’s new. Get used to this! When we hit some of the later books in the Old Testament, it will be like this quite a bit.
• Today is also a challenge to you to spend quality time with your bible. You can read the verses in a minute or so if you rush through them as we’re only looking at 13 of them. Don’t rush them though, and don’t rush your thinking and note-taking time.
• You’ll have noticed we’ve skipped a bit of Genesis 5. We will skip stuff in this reading plan – you should be aware that we don’t read every word. That’s not to diminish the bits we pass over – they are all God’s Word to us. This plan, however, has aim to give you a solid overview of God’s salvation plan through the Scriptures, rather than to read everything. You are welcome to read over passages we miss, if you’re super keen!
• On its own, you may wonder why we focused in on Enoch in chapter 5. Hebrews 11, for the second time this year already, adds an extra layer of understanding for us. Hebrews 11 is a great chapter on living by faith, and lists Enoch as one of the “heroes of faith”. If you skim over the rest of the chapter, you’ll see he is in very good company. What does the Hebrews passage add to you understanding of Enoch? Why is he a hero?
• Did Enoch live an obedient life? Does that mean a perfect life? What’s the difference?
• What do you instantly think of when you read the words “then he was no more, because God took him away”? How is this different from the other people in Genesis 5? The passage in Hebrews will help. How do you think God “took him away”? There are only two people in the bible who didn’t die. Do you know who the other one was? Tip: I’m not referring to Jesus here.
• Enoch didn’t have a bible but he had faith. How do you think he knew about God? Do you think people who don’t know Jesus, or have never seen a bible, can understand and know something about God?
• Hebrews 11:6 speaks truth, doesn’t it? Does your own faith encourage you to please God in what you do, think and choose?
• The Jude passage reminds us God’s judgement will come on all people, Christian and not. We will all be judged as not meeting God’s standard, but what is the wonderful promise made in the Bible for those who trust in Christ?
• You probably didn’t know much about Enoch before today. How will you remember this little bit of teaching in, say, six months? Why might you want to?

If you’re interested, let me indulge you in a little side discussion. You might wonder how Jude could tell us some of the things that Enoch said. Enoch’s words aren’t actually found anywhere in the Old Testament, so how could Jude do this?

Well, yes, they’re not found in the bible. At least, they’re not in the bible that we have today and which is considered by Christians to be God’s complete Word to us. There is, however, a book called “Enoch” (unsurprisingly!) which has been attributed him and which purports to contain his words. This book isn’t included in our bibles.

Enoch is a long book which contains material about angels and demons, more about Noah and the flood and texts about the end of the world. Jude is quoting Enoch 1:9.

At this point in your Christian lives, I would strongly guard against much into books which are not in the bible, especially when there’s plenty in the bible to look at first! But if it interests you, you can find it online. The discussion about why some books are in the bible and others aren’t is a very interesting debate but not one for these notes. I’ll happily chat about it with you some other time if you’re interested. For now, it’s enough to say that the Book of Enoch should not considered as biblical, but the verse that Jude quotes, being in the Bible itself, can be considered to contain truth.