You see hypocrisy displayed almost daily on the nightly news and you read about it in news feeds on your cell phone. The politician who voted for climate change and the banning of fossil fuels flying to a conference or rally in his private jet, which consumes hundreds of gallons of fossil-based fuel. Is he a hypocrite? The case could be made that he is. But what about you and me? Are we ever hypocrites? Lest you think I’m singling out a specific group of people, I’m not. All of us at times have behaved hypocritically. That, however, does not make us hypocrites.
A hypocrite is one who consistently lives, with what theologians call “moral dualism” meaning two sets of moral values. They have a different set of moral values based on the crowd they’re around. In their private world they may act like unbelievers but when they’re with the church crowd they act like pious saints. God desires us to live in “moral monism.” Moral monism is defined as having the same moral values and behavior in private as well as in public. It’s living a consistent life such that what others see is the real you.
The Bible mentions the word hypocrite some 13 times in the Old Testament and 25 times in the New. Jesus utters the term more than anyone else when describing the Pharisees and scribes. What does it mean to be a hypocrite? The actual Greek word means “interpreter from underneath” and came to be used in Greek plays. In a Greek drama, the actor held up a mask and uttered lines from under the mask. The lines spoken may not correspond to the expression on the face mask, hence a hypocrite. So a hypocrite is one who says one thing but does another. Hypocrites have a public life in which they’re angels and a private life in which they’re devils.
The opposite of hypocrisy is sincerity. Drawing from the Roman world of pottery, a vase that was flawless was termed “sine-cera” without wax. Unscrupulous pottery vendors would fill cracks in vases with wax and glaze over them so they appeared perfect on the outside but were flawed underneath. That’s the meaning of our English term “sincere.” A sincere person is not a hypocrite. They are the same on the inside as they are on the outside.
The Bible has much to say about living a sincere life and avoiding hypocrisy. The Apostle Paul uses hypocrisy when he exhorts the Roman believers in Romans 12:9 to, “Let love be without hypocrisy. . .” What he means by that is “don’t fake it. Truly love with a sincere love, an ăgapĕ love.” We are to genuinely care about one another in the church. In his epistle, James says living without hypocrisy is a mark of wisdom from above (James 3:17). In other words, a believer who is sincere and not a hypocrite is filled with God’s wisdom.
Seeking to live with sincerity and truth,
Irv