Using the Jude Bible Study by Jackie Hill Perry in Your Group or Personal Routine
I ran a small group through Jackie Hill Perry's Jude study last year. It's one of those resources that looks simple on the surface but actually demands more from the leader than most ten-session Bible studies do. The material itself is solid, but the way the discussion questions are structured will trip you up if you're not prepared. Here is how I got through it without wasting everyone's time. Jackie Hill Perry's Jude study follows the New Testament letter of Jude fairly closely, but she doesn't do a verse-by-verse commentary approach. Instead she organizes the material around thematic concerns from the letter: false teachers, spiritual vigilance, mercy, and the final judgment. The study typically includes a teaching component, discussion questions, and some reflective exercises designed for personal application. She writes with a pastoral voice that leans toward accessibility rather than academic depth, which means you won't find heavy Greek analysis or debates over textual criticism here. The study is available through several channels. You can order the paperback directly from her publisher's website or major booksellers. Digital versions tend to circulate through Christian resource sites like Amazon Kindle, Faithful Reads, or sometimes her own site at jackiehillperry.com if she has a current landing page up. Many churches also buy bulk print copies for small groups.
I found the best approach is to download or order one copy for yourself first and read through all the material before the group meets. If you skip that step you will be fielding questions you hadn't considered and you will lose control of the pacing pretty quickly.
How I Actually Ran Through This Study
The sessions are typically spaced out over eight to ten weeks depending on your group. Each session usually takes about forty-five minutes to an hour in a standard small group setting, with roughly twenty to thirty minutes of open discussion. The questions are written to provoke conversation rather than to elicit short answers, so you need people who are willing to talk for more than two minutes at a time. If your group tends to be quiet you will need to add your own follow-up prompts or pull from the deeper study guide sections. Here is the practical problem I ran into halfway through the third session. The discussion question about how to identify false teachers in a modern context was generating responses that were either extremely vague or wildly speculative. People were either saying nothing concrete or projecting current cultural debates onto the text in ways that made the conversation unproductive. I stopped the group and redirected. I asked them to read Jude 1:4 and 1:11 again slowly, then asked specifically: "What does this passage say about the character of the false teachers before you apply it to anything?" That refocused the conversation and we actually got somewhere after that. The workaround is straightforward: whenever a question feels too open-ended for your group, bring it back to the text first. Have someone read the relevant verses out loud before any discussion starts. It slows things down initially but it prevents the conversation from drifting into areas where the study guide has no traction.
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What the Study Gets Right
Jackie Hill Perry has a genuine gift for making dense theological content accessible without flattening it. Her treatment of Jude's warnings about apostasy is honest about the seriousness of the passage without turning it into fear-mongering. The discussion questions that ask people to examine their own spiritual posture are the strongest parts of the study because they move beyond intellectual analysis into actual self-examination, which is what Jude demands. She also handles the tension between grace and judgment in a way that feels theologically honest. Jude is one of the most harshly worded books in the New Testament, and it is easy for a study leader to either soften it into irrelevance or lean too hard into condemnation. Perry finds a middle ground that respects the text's severity while keeping the gospel central. That balance is harder to maintain than it sounds.
Where This Study Falls Short
The main limitation is the lack of deeper exegetical grounding. If you are leading a group of people who want to dig into the Greek, trace Old Testament allusions, or wrestle with the historical context of Jude's references to Enoch and the angels who sinned, this study will frustrate them. It was never designed for that level of engagement. You would need to supplement it with a more technical commentary like the NICNT volume on Jude by either David deSilva or Michael Bird if your group wants that depth. Another issue is the length. Some sessions feel padded, especially in the reflection sections. If you are working with a group that has limited time, you will probably skip a significant portion of the personal reflection questions and move on. That is fine, but it means you are leaving value on the table if you do it consistently. A better approach is to assign the reflection portions as homework and use the meeting time for discussion only. The study also assumes a certain level of Christian maturity from participants. If your group includes new believers or people who are just beginning to engage seriously with Scripture, the discussion questions may go over their heads. I found that mixing more experienced Christians with newer believers in the same group created a dynamic where the newer people stayed quiet and the experienced ones dominated. Splitting into smaller pairs for part of the discussion helped balance this.
Practical Tips for Getting the Most Out of It
Read Jude in its entirety before starting the study. I know that sounds obvious but I have seen too many leaders skip this step. The letter is only twenty-five verses. It takes about ten minutes to read straight through and it changes how you engage with every single session. You will catch connections that the study guide does not explicitly highlight. Prepare your own questions beyond what is in the book. The published questions are a starting point, not a complete script. I usually write down three additional questions per session based on what I think my particular group will struggle with. For example, when we got to the section on mercy, I added a question about how to show mercy to someone whose beliefs you find genuinely dangerous, because that is a real tension in the church right now and the study did not fully address it. If you are running this online rather than in person, plan for more structure. Virtual groups tend to fragment during open discussion. I switched to breakout rooms for the second half of each session when we moved to online meetings and it made a measurable difference in participation. People who would never speak in a Zoom gallery view will talk in a pair for twenty minutes.
Do not rush through the study. Jude is short enough that it is tempting to power through it quickly. Resist that. The material rewards slow engagement. Two sessions per month is a sustainable pace that gives people time to sit with what they learned. Going faster tends to produce shallow processing and people dropping out between sessions.
Where to Find and Download Jude Bible Study Jackie Hill Perry
The print version is available on Amazon, from the publisher, and at most Christian bookstores. Some churches order it through wholesale distributors like BookSurplus or Christianbook.com. The digital edition is on Amazon Kindle and sometimes on Faithful Reads, though availability shifts depending on promotions and publisher agreements. I would check her official website first to see if she has a direct link, as that tends to be the most reliable source. If you are looking for a free downloadable PDF, those tend to circulate on forums and file-sharing sites but I cannot recommend sourcing it that way. Support the author if you can use her work. A few groups I know have also had success pairing the study with the free reading plan on Olive Tree Bible App or Logos, which lets you highlight and annotate as you go. It is not a substitute for the study guide but it is useful if you want to keep your notes in one place across multiple sessions.
Bottom Line
This is a good study for a mature small group or for individual use if you are willing to do supplementary reading. It is not a deep exegetical resource and it will not satisfy people who want extensive scholarly engagement with the text. But for a group that wants to wrestle with Jude's challenging message in a pastoral and accessible way, it does what it sets out to do. Just come prepared to lead rather than to simply read through the pages and hope the discussion happens on its own.
