HYPOCRISY (Snapshot)
We have probably all heard this word thrown around at one point or another. Perhaps we have even been on the receiving end of the accusation ourselves. And there is an even greater possibility that, at some point, we have been guilty of it too. Honestly, I do not think many of us make it through life without falling prey to hypocrisy in one form or another. That does not make it harmless, but it should make us humble.
Examples roll off the tongue almost effortlessly: the out-of-shape fitness trainer, the broke financial advisor, the cheating marriage counsellor, the dentist with rotten teeth, the smoking parent telling the child not to smoke.
You get the idea.
In Romans 12:9, the Apostle Paul tells us to “Let love be without hypocrisy. Detest evil; cling to what is good.” He goes on in verse 10 to say, “Love one another deeply as brothers and sisters. Take lead in honouring one another.”
By definition:
In simple terms, hypocrisy is pretending to hold beliefs or values you do not actually live by.
Now, there are so many directions I could take this definition that the examples could practically explode off the page, but I am going to try to rein it in a little.
I will begin by saying that much of my writing circles around this very word. In fact, “pseudo-Christianity,” the description I use across my social media platforms, is really another way of naming hypocrisy: Christianity performed outwardly without the character of Christ being lived inwardly.
What people think it means …
- Pretending to be a Christian.
- Telling people to do something you won’t do.
- Giving advice you don’t follow
- Saying one thing and living another.
These are certainly all examples of hypocrisy, but they do not paint the full picture.
In short ...
Calling someone a hypocrite is often a pejorative way of saying, “You are judging someone else for the very behaviour you excuse, conceal, or practise yourself.” In other words, the standard seems to apply beautifully until it turns around and points back at the person holding it.
Most of us think we know what hypocrisy means. But do we?
As it turns out, Scripture paints a far richer picture than simply, “You told me to do something you are not doing.”
What it actually means Biblically …
To understand what Paul means when he speaks of hypocrisy, we first need to identify whom he is addressing and why. Romans 12:1 opens with “Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship.”
He goes on to say in verse 2, “Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.”
I’d like to be really clear on something here; Paul is speaking to believers. He is not warning outsiders about hypocrisy. He is calling those proclaiming to follow Christ away from outward conformity and toward inward transformation.
The Greek word translated “without hypocrisy” is ἀνυπόκριτος (anupokritos). It means sincere, genuine, unfeigned, or free from pretence. Quite literally, without hypocrisy, or unhypocritical (The New Greek / English Interlinear).
In other words, Paul is not merely saying, “Be nice.” He is saying do not perform love or wear it like a costume. Do not speak the language of Christian affection while your conduct tells an entirely different story.
The related Greek word, ὑποκριτής (hypokritēs), is where we get our English word hypocrite. Originally, it referred to a stage actor, someone wearing a mask while portraying a character.
That image is remarkably fitting. Actors perform a role. Their goal is to convince the audience they are someone they are not. They wear the right costume and rehearse their lines to a T. The applause of the audience may even be genuine; they’ve been convinced.
But when the curtain falls... the mask comes off.
Biblically, hypocrisy is not simply making mistakes. Nor is it the struggle of someone genuinely trying to follow Christ while occasionally falling short. If that were the case, we’d all be hypocrites, always! Instead, hypocrisy is the performance of righteousness while concealing unrighteousness.
Let’s just say, for arguments sake, if you’re a porn addict claiming sobriety while secretly watching sexually explicit movies and sitcoms because they are not secularly defined as “pornography,” you are most certainly, a practising hypocrite. I think most would agree with this illustration.
It is wearing the mask instead of pursuing transformation. Transformation changes the heart. Hypocrisy changes the costume. Elsewhere in my writing, I’ve referenced this as the “masquerade.”
Perhaps in today's language we could say it like this:
- Don't sing Amazing Grace on Sunday morning and abuse your wife on Sunday afternoon.
- Don't preach forgiveness while refusing to repent.
- Don't proclaim servant leadership while demanding control.
- Don't speak of honour while publicly humiliating your brother or sister in Christ.
The Curious Thing About Jesus...
One of the most fascinating observations in the Gospels that should make every church leader stop and think is this: Jesus reserved the title "hypocrite" most often for the most religious people in the room. Most of us instinctively picture “those other people” when we hear the word religious. But is that really who Jesus had in mind? Who exactly were the religious leaders?
It wasn’t at all the people we think fit the bill in today’s world. In Jesus’ day, it was not the tax collectors, the prostitutes, or the pagans. In our day, perhaps it would not be the people outside the Church, the ones with no polished Christian testimony, no theological vocabulary, and no interest whatsoever in pretending they get everything right. Actually, in today’s language, they were the very kind of people I refer to as “pseudo-Christians”: outwardly religious, publicly representative of God, and yet inwardly disconnected from His character.
In fact, Jesus directed His strongest rebukes toward the people everyone assumed had it all together.
Matthew 23:27–28
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of the bones of the dead and every kind of impurity. In the same way, on the outside you seem righteous to people, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness."
What exactly is a whitewashed tomb? Well, it looks clean on the outside. Maybe even pure. It presents as respectable and trustworthy. But underneath, it is full of rot and decay. And notice something remarkable about these two verses. Jesus doesn't say they looked “sinful.” He says they looked “righteous.” Looking righteous was precisely what made them dangerous.
Matthew 23:23, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You pay a tenth of mint, dill and cumin, and yet you have neglected the more important matters of the law: justice, mercy and faithfulness."
Again, notice what Jesus criticises. He doesn't begin with doctrine or memorised Bible verses. He begins with justice, mercy and faithfulness. He is telling us plainly that hypocrites are meticulously religious while neglecting the very character of God. This is why hypocrisy is so deceptive and why Paul gives us such a frank warning abut it. It often looks remarkably convincing to those both outside and inside of the Church.
Hypocrisy knows the verses and it knows exactly when to quote them. It knows the vocabulary and the traditions that complement. And it is also very, very good at saying "Amen."
Sometimes (if not most times) it even knows enough theology to convince everyone except the people living underneath it. The people living beneath it can feel the weight of the hypocrisy even when they can’t name the contradiction and they don’t need a Greek lexicon to define it. They already know the difference between a mask and a face. That should make every one of us pause for a moment and consider whether we fully know what we think we know.
Perhaps Hypocrisy Sounds a Little More Like This …
- Preaching forgiveness while refusing to repent.
- Preaching servant leadership while demanding control.
- Preaching humility while chasing celebrity.
- Preaching grace while extending none.
- Calling people divisive while publicly humiliating them.
- Condemning pride while delighting in theological superiority.
- Claiming biblical authority while ignoring biblical context.
- Speaking of honour while publicly dishonouring Christ's people.
In my own words …
If you have read my tangent on Women in Ministry, you already know that Beth Moore helped inspire it. And no, I do not mean through some private conversation with her. I have never met Beth Moore, nor have I attended one of her conferences. It was not intentional. What caught my attention was the way she was publicly slandered, scrutinised, and diminished by people who also claimed to “love” their brothers and sisters in Christ. Beth Moore became the catalyst for my very first Tangent and, in many ways, the spark that eventually led to the first volume of The Tangent Series: Tearing the Veil. You could say I owe quite a bit to a woman who knows nothing of me, yet influenced my writing in ways she may never fully understand.
But what does Beth Moore have to do with hypocrisy? Well, frankly, nothing personally. She has certainly been accused of it, but what caught my attention was the hypocrisy practised by many of those making the accusation.
There is something especially revealing about publicly slandering, belittling, and scrutinising a sister in Christ while insisting it is all being done in the name of biblical faithfulness and Christian love. It is, remember, “brothers and sisters” that Paul is talking to. That is where Beth Moore enters this discussion, not as the hypocrite in question, but as the mirror.
Jesus said in John 13:34:
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” He did not say, “Love one another until she preaches,” or “until she interprets Scripture differently.” And He certainly did not say, “Love one another until her calling makes you uncomfortable or threatens your patriarchal traditions.” The command was not conditional.
No. He specifically said to love one another as He loved us. That is a considerably higher standard than winning an argument while humiliating your sister in public. Strangely, that part of the conversation rarely gets centre stage.
Why it matters:
I keep saying this, but the outside world is watching. Far too often, our behaviour makes a mockery of the Cross we proclaim. When we smother the gifts and calling of Christ in others while presenting ourselves as the ones uniquely chosen, uniquely qualified, or uniquely authorised to do the very thing we are denying them, that is hypocrisy too. It is also arrogant, entitled, and entirely contrary to the humility Christ modelled.
Paul tells believers plainly to love without hypocrisy, to honour one another, and to take the lead in doing so. I do not think his meaning is difficult to understand. It is written with almost elementary simplicity. If you are a brother or sister in Christ, you are called to love other believers sincerely, without pretense. Paul couples that command with another: detest what is evil and cling to what is good. In other words, sincere love does not flatter harm, excuse injustice, or rename cruelty as faithfulness simply because someone attached a Bible verse to it.
Yet that is not what happened in the case of Beth Moore. And it is certainly not what happens in many comment sections where women in ministry, patriarchy, submission, “biblical womanhood,” or tradwife culture are being discussed.
Some of the language Christians use against one another is not merely unkind. It is mocking, demeaning, slanderous, and, quite frankly, a long way from taking the lead in honour.
Newsflash:
- You cannot claim to love your sister in Christ while publicly humiliating her. You cannot claim to honour women while reducing their gifts to rebellion.
- You cannot claim to defend Scripture while using Scripture as a muzzle.
- You cannot insist that women are fully gifted by the Spirit while quietly ensuring they are never permitted to use those gifts anywhere they might actually be heard.
The contradiction is obvious. And honestly, it is not lost on some of the people sitting in the pews either.
Even some churches that identify themselves as egalitarian appear hesitant to live it out. The statement is on the website. The word is in the policy manual. Everyone agrees women are “valued.” And yet, somehow, equality sounds wonderful right up until Sunday morning. Women may be affirmed in principle, but the pulpit remains strangely allergic to their presence. They are allowed to preach on paper, just not in practice. That is not egalitarianism lived out. It is pretending to be egalitarianism while practising hierarchy, and honestly, it doesn’t fool those who understand equality in Christ. A different name does not always produce a different practice.
And for the record, hypocrisy is not stumbling while following Christ. We all do that, every single one of us. Most people reduce hypocrisy to simply saying one thing while doing another. In my own elementary definition, hypocrisy is lying on your résumé to get a job you were never qualified to do. Eventually, the interview ends, the probation period is over, and the work speaks for itself.
Paul is clear, Christianity was never meant to be theatre. The stage belongs to actors. The cross belongs to disciples.
God has never been fooled by the mask. So no matter how convincing the costume, how polished the performance, or how sweet the spiritual language, Christ makes one thing very clear: They are not fooling Him. Christ can still smell the stench, no matter how much cologne or perfume is sprayed over it. Scripture tells us He has always been after transformed hearts.
—RJB
We have probably all heard this word thrown around at one point or another. Perhaps we have even been on the receiving end of the accusation ourselves. And there is an even greater possibility that, at some point, we have been guilty of it too. Honestly, I do not think many of us make it through life without falling prey to hypocrisy in one form or another. That does not make it harmless, but it should make us humble.
Examples roll off the tongue almost effortlessly: the out-of-shape fitness trainer, the broke financial advisor, the cheating marriage counsellor, the dentist with rotten teeth, the smoking parent telling the child not to smoke.
You get the idea.
In Romans 12:9, the Apostle Paul tells us to “Let love be without hypocrisy. Detest evil; cling to what is good.” He goes on in verse 10 to say, “Love one another deeply as brothers and sisters. Take lead in honouring one another.”
By definition:
In simple terms, hypocrisy is pretending to hold beliefs or values you do not actually live by.
Now, there are so many directions I could take this definition that the examples could practically explode off the page, but I am going to try to rein it in a little.
I will begin by saying that much of my writing circles around this very word. In fact, “pseudo-Christianity,” the description I use across my social media platforms, is really another way of naming hypocrisy: Christianity performed outwardly without the character of Christ being lived inwardly.
What people think it means …
- Pretending to be a Christian.
- Telling people to do something you won’t do.
- Giving advice you don’t follow
- Saying one thing and living another.
These are certainly all examples of hypocrisy, but they do not paint the full picture.
In short ...
Calling someone a hypocrite is often a pejorative way of saying, “You are judging someone else for the very behaviour you excuse, conceal, or practise yourself.” In other words, the standard seems to apply beautifully until it turns around and points back at the person holding it.
Most of us think we know what hypocrisy means. But do we?
As it turns out, Scripture paints a far richer picture than simply, “You told me to do something you are not doing.”
What it actually means Biblically …
To understand what Paul means when he speaks of hypocrisy, we first need to identify whom he is addressing and why. Romans 12:1 opens with “Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship.”
He goes on to say in verse 2, “Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.”
I’d like to be really clear on something here; Paul is speaking to believers. He is not warning outsiders about hypocrisy. He is calling those proclaiming to follow Christ away from outward conformity and toward inward transformation.
The Greek word translated “without hypocrisy” is ἀνυπόκριτος (anupokritos). It means sincere, genuine, unfeigned, or free from pretence. Quite literally, without hypocrisy, or unhypocritical (The New Greek / English Interlinear).
In other words, Paul is not merely saying, “Be nice.” He is saying do not perform love or wear it like a costume. Do not speak the language of Christian affection while your conduct tells an entirely different story.
The related Greek word, ὑποκριτής (hypokritēs), is where we get our English word hypocrite. Originally, it referred to a stage actor, someone wearing a mask while portraying a character.
That image is remarkably fitting. Actors perform a role. Their goal is to convince the audience they are someone they are not. They wear the right costume and rehearse their lines to a T. The applause of the audience may even be genuine; they’ve been convinced.
But when the curtain falls... the mask comes off.
Biblically, hypocrisy is not simply making mistakes. Nor is it the struggle of someone genuinely trying to follow Christ while occasionally falling short. If that were the case, we’d all be hypocrites, always! Instead, hypocrisy is the performance of righteousness while concealing unrighteousness.
Let’s just say, for arguments sake, if you’re a porn addict claiming sobriety while secretly watching sexually explicit movies and sitcoms because they are not secularly defined as “pornography,” you are most certainly, a practising hypocrite. I think most would agree with this illustration.
It is wearing the mask instead of pursuing transformation. Transformation changes the heart. Hypocrisy changes the costume. Elsewhere in my writing, I’ve referenced this as the “masquerade.”
Perhaps in today's language we could say it like this:
- Don't sing Amazing Grace on Sunday morning and abuse your wife on Sunday afternoon.
- Don't preach forgiveness while refusing to repent.
- Don't proclaim servant leadership while demanding control.
- Don't speak of honour while publicly humiliating your brother or sister in Christ.
The Curious Thing About Jesus...
One of the most fascinating observations in the Gospels that should make every church leader stop and think is this: Jesus reserved the title "hypocrite" most often for the most religious people in the room. Most of us instinctively picture “those other people” when we hear the word religious. But is that really who Jesus had in mind? Who exactly were the religious leaders?
It wasn’t at all the people we think fit the bill in today’s world. In Jesus’ day, it was not the tax collectors, the prostitutes, or the pagans. In our day, perhaps it would not be the people outside the Church, the ones with no polished Christian testimony, no theological vocabulary, and no interest whatsoever in pretending they get everything right. Actually, in today’s language, they were the very kind of people I refer to as “pseudo-Christians”: outwardly religious, publicly representative of God, and yet inwardly disconnected from His character.
In fact, Jesus directed His strongest rebukes toward the people everyone assumed had it all together.
Matthew 23:27–28
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of the bones of the dead and every kind of impurity. In the same way, on the outside you seem righteous to people, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness."
What exactly is a whitewashed tomb? Well, it looks clean on the outside. Maybe even pure. It presents as respectable and trustworthy. But underneath, it is full of rot and decay. And notice something remarkable about these two verses. Jesus doesn't say they looked “sinful.” He says they looked “righteous.” Looking righteous was precisely what made them dangerous.
Matthew 23:23, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You pay a tenth of mint, dill and cumin, and yet you have neglected the more important matters of the law: justice, mercy and faithfulness."
Again, notice what Jesus criticises. He doesn't begin with doctrine or memorised Bible verses. He begins with justice, mercy and faithfulness. He is telling us plainly that hypocrites are meticulously religious while neglecting the very character of God. This is why hypocrisy is so deceptive and why Paul gives us such a frank warning abut it. It often looks remarkably convincing to those both outside and inside of the Church.
Hypocrisy knows the verses and it knows exactly when to quote them. It knows the vocabulary and the traditions that complement. And it is also very, very good at saying "Amen."
Sometimes (if not most times) it even knows enough theology to convince everyone except the people living underneath it. The people living beneath it can feel the weight of the hypocrisy even when they can’t name the contradiction and they don’t need a Greek lexicon to define it. They already know the difference between a mask and a face. That should make every one of us pause for a moment and consider whether we fully know what we think we know.
Perhaps Hypocrisy Sounds a Little More Like This …
- Preaching forgiveness while refusing to repent.
- Preaching servant leadership while demanding control.
- Preaching humility while chasing celebrity.
- Preaching grace while extending none.
- Calling people divisive while publicly humiliating them.
- Condemning pride while delighting in theological superiority.
- Claiming biblical authority while ignoring biblical context.
- Speaking of honour while publicly dishonouring Christ's people.
In my own words …
If you have read my tangent on Women in Ministry, you already know that Beth Moore helped inspire it. And no, I do not mean through some private conversation with her. I have never met Beth Moore, nor have I attended one of her conferences. It was not intentional. What caught my attention was the way she was publicly slandered, scrutinised, and diminished by people who also claimed to “love” their brothers and sisters in Christ. Beth Moore became the catalyst for my very first Tangent and, in many ways, the spark that eventually led to the first volume of The Tangent Series: Tearing the Veil. You could say I owe quite a bit to a woman who knows nothing of me, yet influenced my writing in ways she may never fully understand.
But what does Beth Moore have to do with hypocrisy? Well, frankly, nothing personally. She has certainly been accused of it, but what caught my attention was the hypocrisy practised by many of those making the accusation.
There is something especially revealing about publicly slandering, belittling, and scrutinising a sister in Christ while insisting it is all being done in the name of biblical faithfulness and Christian love. It is, remember, “brothers and sisters” that Paul is talking to. That is where Beth Moore enters this discussion, not as the hypocrite in question, but as the mirror.
Jesus said in John 13:34:
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” He did not say, “Love one another until she preaches,” or “until she interprets Scripture differently.” And He certainly did not say, “Love one another until her calling makes you uncomfortable or threatens your patriarchal traditions.” The command was not conditional.
No. He specifically said to love one another as He loved us. That is a considerably higher standard than winning an argument while humiliating your sister in public. Strangely, that part of the conversation rarely gets centre stage.
Why it matters:
I keep saying this, but the outside world is watching. Far too often, our behaviour makes a mockery of the Cross we proclaim. When we smother the gifts and calling of Christ in others while presenting ourselves as the ones uniquely chosen, uniquely qualified, or uniquely authorised to do the very thing we are denying them, that is hypocrisy too. It is also arrogant, entitled, and entirely contrary to the humility Christ modelled.
Paul tells believers plainly to love without hypocrisy, to honour one another, and to take the lead in doing so. I do not think his meaning is difficult to understand. It is written with almost elementary simplicity. If you are a brother or sister in Christ, you are called to love other believers sincerely, without pretense. Paul couples that command with another: detest what is evil and cling to what is good. In other words, sincere love does not flatter harm, excuse injustice, or rename cruelty as faithfulness simply because someone attached a Bible verse to it.
Yet that is not what happened in the case of Beth Moore. And it is certainly not what happens in many comment sections where women in ministry, patriarchy, submission, “biblical womanhood,” or tradwife culture are being discussed.
Some of the language Christians use against one another is not merely unkind. It is mocking, demeaning, slanderous, and, quite frankly, a long way from taking the lead in honour.
Newsflash:
- You cannot claim to love your sister in Christ while publicly humiliating her. You cannot claim to honour women while reducing their gifts to rebellion.
- You cannot claim to defend Scripture while using Scripture as a muzzle.
- You cannot insist that women are fully gifted by the Spirit while quietly ensuring they are never permitted to use those gifts anywhere they might actually be heard.
The contradiction is obvious. And honestly, it is not lost on some of the people sitting in the pews either.
Even some churches that identify themselves as egalitarian appear hesitant to live it out. The statement is on the website. The word is in the policy manual. Everyone agrees women are “valued.” And yet, somehow, equality sounds wonderful right up until Sunday morning. Women may be affirmed in principle, but the pulpit remains strangely allergic to their presence. They are allowed to preach on paper, just not in practice. That is not egalitarianism lived out. It is pretending to be egalitarianism while practising hierarchy, and honestly, it doesn’t fool those who understand equality in Christ. A different name does not always produce a different practice.
And for the record, hypocrisy is not stumbling while following Christ. We all do that, every single one of us. Most people reduce hypocrisy to simply saying one thing while doing another. In my own elementary definition, hypocrisy is lying on your résumé to get a job you were never qualified to do. Eventually, the interview ends, the probation period is over, and the work speaks for itself.
Paul is clear, Christianity was never meant to be theatre. The stage belongs to actors. The cross belongs to disciples.
God has never been fooled by the mask. So no matter how convincing the costume, how polished the performance, or how sweet the spiritual language, Christ makes one thing very clear: They are not fooling Him. Christ can still smell the stench, no matter how much cologne or perfume is sprayed over it. Scripture tells us He has always been after transformed hearts.
—RJB