"contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints"

I teach Sunday School to a group of high school guys. Currently, we're working our way through the tiny letter of Jude. Jude's letter is deceptively short: it's packed with OT and apocryphal allusions which make simple, Sunday School-style explication difficult because these texts (the Book of Enoch, the Testament of Moses, rabbinic interpretations of stories from the Pentateuch, etc.) are unfamiliar to many Christians.

In addition to being a challenging read, Jude is, arguably, the most neglected letter in the NT -- except for verse 3. In studying Jude, I've come to see just how this verse has been abused and decontextualized in such a way that it has been (and continues to be) used as a weapon against those with whom you disagree. In my own study, I've been relying on Richard Bauckham's very thorough commentary (in the Word Biblical Commentary Series). He argues, and rightly so I think, that the meaning of the phrase "contend for the faith" is governed by how the letter is structured. He provides the following outline:

1-2 Address and Greeting
3-4 Occasion and Theme of the Letter
3 A. The Appeal
4 B. The Background to the Appeal
5-19 B. The Background to the Appeal: A Midrash on the Prophecies of the Doom of the Ungodly
5-7 (1) Three OT types
8-10 plus interpretation
9 (1a) Michael and the Devil
11 (2) Three More OT Types
12-13 plus interpretation
14-15 (3) The Prophecy of Enoch
16 plus interpretation
17-18 (4) The Prophecy of the Apostles
19 plus interpretation
20-23 A. The Appeal
24-25 Closing Doxology

To simplify: after greeting the recipients of his letter, Jude describes their situation, saying that the false teachers who are among them are "designated for...condemnation as ungodly." He then gives several OT and apocryphal examples of people (ungodly teachers and prophets) who had already come to a bad end.

Why is this important?

To quote Bauckham (p. 32): "The structure of the letter is most important for establishing what Jude intended his readers to do to continue the fight for the faith. What his appeal means he spells out in vv. 20-23, which contain entirely positive exhortations." In other words, Jude does not leave his readers in the dark as to what he has in mind by the phrase "contend for the faith." He exhorts them to:

"build yourselves up on your most holy faith; pray in the Holy Spirit; keep yourselves in the love of God; look forward to the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And have mercy on some who are wavering; save others by snatching them out of the fire; and have mercy on still others with fear, hating even the tunic defiled by their bodies."

These are, indeed, positive exhortations that focus on the inner life and one's own spiritual formation and that of one's community (ekklesia). There are some things that Jude very definitely does not have in mind here: slandering one's brother in a public fashion, "writing up those who honestly and sincerely disagree with you on a given issue. By Jude's definition, this is not contending for the faith. Neither is this.

Thoughts?