Many years ago, I think it was when I was in high school, someone at church told a story about a man who was at Bible study with his friends. People were talking about how they were hypocrites. The man commented that all they generally did was get together and talk about how they were hypocrites. I don’t remember exactly how this story ended or who it was about, but it strikes a chord with me years later.
If you get together with other people and genuinely lament the ways you aren’t meeting God’s standards…….you are not living a life of hypocrisy.
Please take some time to just hear this. Many of us Christians have been taught, often times by people that aren’t Christians, that we are hypocrites. It is true that Jesus had a particular distaste for hypocrisy and warned his disciples about it, but the big question is “What is hypocrisy?”. I realized a couple years ago that I really couldn’t pin down the definition of the word in a way that was at all clear. So I looked up some things about the Greek word Jesus used.
Using studylight.org is not too difficult. Using the interlinear study Bible is the basic tool that I have used most often. In Luke 12 Jesus explicitly warns His disciples about the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. The Greek word used here is transliterated as “hypokrisis”. I’m going to just list some of the meanings of that word that are given on Study Light. There’s obviously a lot of materials out there that we can dig into if we want.
“an answer or an answering” – this seems fairly innocuous at first. The problem with it will become more clear as we go on. I’d suggest that this indicates something akin to an “official statement”. It’s an answer. It’s not the reality or truth, and we generally know that it doesn’t tell the whole story.
“the acting of a stage player” – this can actually be taken multiple ways. The idea of speaking a predetermined set of words is similar to the idea of an official statement. The idea is somewhat worse though here because people’s personal lives here can be completely disconnected from the publicly staged impressions they are giving. At least with an official statement we know things about the person and their history to a degree. A good actor can portray emotions they’re not naturally inclined to have at all. Bad actors, however, at least generally have something in common with their characters. This, to me, implies a disconnect between the public and private life.
“dissimulation” – I don’t think I’ve ever used this word before. Its dictionary definition is “concealment of one’s thoughts, feelings, or character; pretense”. Some synonyms of dissimulation are: pretense, dissembling, misrepresentation, deceit, dishonesty, duplicity, lying, feigning, falsification, shamming, faking, bluffing, counterfeiting, posturing, hypocrisy, double-dealing, subterfuge…it’s all becoming clear now.
“implying arrogance and hardness of heart, utterly devoid of sincerity and genuineness” – this will be the last definition I list here. I think we all get the point. It’s an utter lack of sincerity. Words said in hypocrisy don’t represent the reality of the life or the feelings of the person that speaks them. It’s basically just lying. It’s making one’s character appear better than it actually is.
Sometimes people give lying a pass, as if it’s not really a big deal. I think that to Jesus and to us, His followers, it might be the biggest deal.
Jesus talks about yeast or leaven in the context of hypocrisy. Leaven is something that puffs bread up. I really enjoy puffy bread, but we see how it is made to appear to have more mass than it actually does.
In Luke 16:13-15 Jesus had the following interaction with the Pharisees:
“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. He said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts. What people value highly is detestable in God’s sight.”
What stands out to me about this is that Jesus is calling people out for seeking to appear better in front of people than they actually were, and for highly valuing that appearance, but not actually having a heart to please God.
In John 5:43-44 Jesus says “I have come in My Father’s name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, you will receive him. How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?“
Again Jesus is calling people out for seeking glory from people, but not from God. God is not impressed when people seek to impress people but don’t seek to impress Him. Having a great public life but not having a life that pleases God isn’t impressive to God. Having a great reputation but not having a great character isn’t impressive to God. Why would it be? A building without a solid foundation is going to fall over. It’s not a good decision to continue building it, adding on to it and/or repairing it. It would be wiser to re-lay the foundation and start over.
The first thing that we need to have in order to have a solid foundation is simply to trust God. The following passage is about Jesus.
When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.
1 Peter 2:23
Jesus was without sin, yet He didn’t retaliate when He was attacked. Instead He…trusted God. He entrusted Himself to the one that judges fairly.
Often times people avoid being open about their sin because they don’t want to be attacked. This shows a fear of people. Jesus wasn’t like that. He just let Himself be known and let the cards fall where they may until God judged fairly.
If someone is living in hypocrisy, often the need is for that person to simply entrust himself to God by creating a clear consistency between his public life and his private life and facing the music as he does. For us God is not only the one that judges fairly. He is also the one who has mercy on us. We can trust Him. Also His judgments matter a lot more than people’s do and He will work everything together for our good.
Teaching the Bible while being imperfect is not hypocrisy. Unless you are giving the impression that you are perfectly living out what you are teaching or aren’t even practicing at all. If we could only teach once we’re perfect nobody would teach the Bible. It’s obvious in the New Testament that God is calling us to teach the Bible, and to not be silent even though we are imperfect.
However, if we teach the Bible, I think it’s generally incumbent upon us to be open with those we teach regarding the ways we aren’t living up to our teaching (people often times know anyway. See Matthew 23:12), lest we give the impression we are and we come to have a disconnect between our public and private lives. At the very least, if we aren’t even practicing, but we are teaching, I think there’s a pretty strong disconnect between our public and our private lives. We don’t want that.
When we have hypocrisy, number one, we come to lead a life Jesus has to oppose because it’s not safe for others to be around. Number two, what’s the point? God’s Kingdom isn’t actually growing in that life. God promises that if we confess our sins, He will both heal us and forgive us. He will help us get out of our sin and actually lay a stronger foundation in our lives. There’s no way to gain all of that, though, without being in the light. (see 1 John 1:5-10 and James 5:16).
Really as those commanded by God to make disciples and build the Church into maturity, it’s not an option for us to stop teaching the Bible. That’s the cowardly way out. Straight up cowardly.
We’re called to face the music by reading, practicing and teaching the Bible and then being honest with ourselves, God, and others about our shortcomings. This is how the Kingdom grows.
Don’t start suggesting that you’ve arrived until you’ve actually arrived. Show your respect for God by acknowledging all the ways that He doesn’t think you’ve arrived. Almost as importantly, be honest about your own dreams. If you are, you’ll recognize that even in your own judgment you haven’t arrived yet. God loves us in a powerful and beautiful way. When we know that, there will be no fear or shame attached to being honest in this way.
I want to draw your attention to one more passage before I conclude. Psalm 32:1-2 is quoted in Romans 4:7-8, but the end of verse 2 is cut off. They say:
Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord does not count against them and in whose spirit is no deceit.
Psalm 32:1-2
I don’t believe there’s a requirement to live a life free from deceit to be saved or to experience forgiveness. However we know from the verse in 1 Peter that if we actually trust God, we will be able to face public humiliation and that we will seek to please God, not people. If we can’t do this, do we really know that God forgives us? Or maybe we don’t think that God’s decision making and what He thinks of us are relevant for today’s world. Nothing could be further from the truth.
When we step into the light, the power of the Holy Spirit begins to work things together for our good whether others are on board with us being blessed or not. There’s only growth in God’s Kingdom. God is light. In Him there is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5-6). When we live in the light, we follow Jesus and we get into the flow of His Kingdom and His power. Sin loses its stranglehold on our lives because all of sin has its roots in darkness. When we live in darkness we walk away from the victory of Jesus.
We don’t have to go through people to have light in our lives, but the Bible commands us to open up to each other anyway (James 5:16). The light of Jesus-following community is the safest place we can be. We are free to stop pretending. When we do we find out who our real friends are.
Let’s live lives where there is consistency between our public and private lives and avoid hypocrisy so that Jesus doesn’t have to warn people about us.