“Hidden reefs in your love feasts”
These men are hidden reefs in your love feasts, shamelessly feasting with you but shepherding only themselves. (Jude 1:12 BSB)
What it sounds like today
'Love feasts' need explaining before the reefs do.
The cultural key
The agape, the love feast, was the church's communal supper, a real shared meal (with the Lord's Supper within or alongside it) where rich and poor ate from one table, the institution the Corinthians were fracturing (see the 1 Corinthians 11:21 entry). Jude's intruders attend enthusiastically, 'feasting without fear.' His word for them, spilades, means hidden reefs: rock lying just beneath a calm surface, the sailor's nightmare, invisible until the hull is opened. 'Shepherds feeding themselves' reaches back to Ezekiel 34's indictment of leaders.
Recovered meaning
The most dangerous people at the fellowship meal are the ones enjoying it most comfortably: hazards below the waterline of a warm gathering. Jude's image demands what reefs always demand, a chart and a lookout, not the abandonment of the voyage.