I have never read Looking Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe, but there is a line from it in one of my books of quotations. Harry Tugman (whoever he is) is asking Luke where he is presently stationed. The response goes like this:
“At the p-p-p-present time in Norfolk at the Navy base,” Luke answered, “m-m-making the world safe for hypocrisy.”
Luke hardly needs to have bothered. The world is obviously a safe place for hypocrisy–it’s everywhere.
Washington has honed it to a fine art; hypocrisy is an indispensable tool of the trade for the majority of politicians. Madison Avenue advertising is forever manufacturing mirages to tempt the world’s desert travelers to another imaginary oasis. And Hollywood makes billions on it; in fact that’s where the word had its origin–in the world of the actor.
The word hypocrisy is merely the Anglicized form of the Greek hupokrisis. At its root it means a reply, but the word became associated with acting, probably since the Greek actors spoke in dialogue. Hypocrite then came to mean “one who affects virtues or qualities he does not have” (Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary).
For those who attended the recent Rise Up & Build conference in Dearborn, this issue of Uplook includes memories of some of the ministry available there. For those unable to attend, this is a sampler, and after tasting, you may want more. We weren’t able to capture the sweet fellowship for redistribution, or bottle the out-of-this-world singing, but there are tapes available of almost all the sessions. We hope you’ll avail yourselves of these.
And what does that have to do with hypocrisy? The link is found in the question at the head of this article.
Whachyagointadoaboudit? Will we really benefit from such an outpouring of divine truth or will we only seem to be changed? May our prayer be borrowed from Amy Carmichael: “Lord, make me what I seem to be.”
Obviously all the time and effort and prayer and expense and travel was not intended to produce a mere impression of spiritual vigor. We want the real thing.
The Lord Jesus addressed hypocrisy more than anyone in the New Testament. In fact, He is the only one in the 27 books who called anyone a hypocrite (Paul, Peter and James refer to hypocrisy). He mentions it 20 times, mostly in Matthew (never in John). Here are some of them:
1. A public display of spiritual activity (almsgiving, prayers, and fasting) to receive the praise of men (Mt. 6:2, 5, 16). Not that you never perform public ministry, but that you don’t do it for men’s approval.
2. Dealing with others’ faults while pretending not to have any yourself (Mt. 7:5). This is the illustration of the mote and the beam (or the sawdust speck and the 2×4). You are not a hypocrite for trying to help a fellow Christian with a troublesome speck in his eye, but for pretending that you are an expert and have no troubles yourself.
3. Appearing to take the things of God seriously while actually using such to justify a selfish lifestyle (Mt. 15:4-9).
4. Feigning interest in the will of God for the future while having no interest in practically doing God’s will in the pres-ent (Mt. 16:1-4).
5. Professing God as the supreme Master in your life while having other loyalties that take precedence over Him (Mt. 22:15-22). The Lord’s illustration of the coin showed that there generally is no conflict between responsibility to government and to God.
6. Matthew 23 has a string of woes against hypocrites (vv. 13, 14, 15, 23, 25, 27, 29). These include: professing to represent God while being an impediment to others in coming to Him, using long public prayers as a disguise for selfish living, being fussy about little things but ignoring the big issues, being fastidious about outward appearance but not about inward reality, and being critical of older generations while repeating their sins.
7. Saying that you believe in the coming of the Lord but living as if it will never happen (Mt. 24:45-51).
In a world full of phonies, God help us to be realies. “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.”