I have no statistical data to back this up–but I would suspect that one of the top, if not the top, reasons for people either not going to church, not liking church, etc, would be “the church is full of hypocrites.” While I would probably doubt that every church is full of hypocrites–I imagine that inside the church there is a fair representation–as there is outside the church–but then I digress.
What is a hypocrite? The etymology of the word goes back to Greek drama. It literally means an actor or a pretender. Even though I could find no evidence in my own research, it has often been said the word means under (“hypo”) a mask. When we use the word we mean somebody that behaves differently in different situations–more specifically, an individual that acts nice to my face, but acts the very opposite behind my back.
Tomorrow night the majority of children and a large number of adults will “dress up” in all sorts of costumes and masks. When you hear people talk about the characters they will portray they often ask, “so, who are you going to be?” In costuming and in acting we can easily be confused with who/what we are “pretending” to be. I think this applies to the person who calls themselves a Christian. When we claim to be Christians we are saying that our lives have been changed through a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. That being the case is it really outside the pale when the watching world expects us to live different? I am not wanting to be offensive here, but I think that the rather ever-present bumper-sticker “Christians aren’t perfect–just forgiven” while it may be theologically accurate, tends to be more of a “cop-out” than biblical truth.
So as we “portray” disciples of Christ we will do so in one of two ways. #1–Ravi Zacharias once said, “Maybe the reason why the watching world does not see Christ in the church is because their eyesight is too good.” #2 In the book of Acts the enemies of Jesus questioned and punished His disciples–Jesus’ disciples would not be dissuaded and the Scripture says the leaders could easily see that “these men had been with Jesus.” Let’s reflect on this–when those that are not open to the message of the gospel or even antagonistic toward it, come into contact with us–do they see an accurate picture of a disciple of Christ or does it remind them more of an actor on a stage?
I have no statistical data to back this up–but I would suspect that one of the top, if not the top, reasons for people either not going to church, not liking church, etc, would be “the church is full of hypocrites.” While I would probably doubt that every church is full of hypocrites–I imagine that inside the church there is a fair representation–as there is outside the church–but then I digress.
What is a hypocrite? The etymology of the word goes back to Greek drama. It literally means an actor or a pretender. Even though I could find no evidence in my own research, it has often been said the word means under (“hypo”) a mask. When we use the word we mean somebody that behaves differently in different situations–more specifically, an individual that acts nice to my face, but acts the very opposite behind my back.
Tomorrow night the majority of children and a large number of adults will “dress up” in all sorts of costumes and masks. When you hear people talk about the characters they will portray they often ask, “so, who are you going to be?” In costuming and in acting we can easily be confused with who/what we are “pretending” to be. I think this applies to the person who calls themselves a Christian. When we claim to be Christians we are saying that our lives have been changed through a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. That being the case is it really outside the pale when the watching world expects us to live different? I am not wanting to be offensive here, but I think that the rather ever-present bumper-sticker “Christians aren’t perfect–just forgiven” while it may be theologically accurate, tends to be more of a “cop-out” than biblical truth.
So as we “portray” disciples of Christ we will do so in one of two ways. #1–Ravi Zacharias once said, “Maybe the reason why the watching world does not see Christ in the church is because their eyesight is too good.” #2 In the book of Acts the enemies of Jesus questioned and punished His disciples–Jesus’ disciples would not be dissuaded and the Scripture says the leaders could easily see that “these men had been with Jesus.” Let’s reflect on this–when those that are not open to the message of the gospel or even antagonistic toward it, come into contact with us–do they see an accurate picture of a disciple of Christ or does it remind them more of an actor on a stage?
Pastor Jeff
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