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What is Christianity Up Against?
Do not according to their works; for they say, and do not.
Matthew 23:3
Some of the opponents of Christianity may not be so much against Christ as they are against the hypocrisy of his followers. Interesting too is how no one was more opposed to hypocrisy than Jesus himself. Our Lord knew you cannot impress the world with Christ when lives are not living by his words or example.
We have all met doubters and scoffers who relentlessly use the phrase, “The church is full of hypocrites!” Although, we may respond to them and say, “You have hypocrites where you work, but it doesn’t keep you from going to work every day.” Do not be so thoughtless in your response and dismiss such criticism until you have investigated the source of their conclusion. These people may have been directly or indirectly affected by a hateful word, lack of payment for something purchased, or a parent who utters occasional curse words at home. We tend to think this cannot be true of us or any other Christian. Think again. Have we ever been like the Christian who glanced through her window, only to see a nosy, noisy neighbor approaching her door? Her young, impressionable children heard her as she growled, “Oh, no! Not her again!” The mother opens the door and utters with insincerity, “How very nice to see you!” The Christian involved in any of the previous behaviors casts an immediate doubt into their heart of the validity of Christianity.
What the accusers of hypocrisy see is what Christians sometimes do not see. If you call yourself Christian, those in the world know there must be a difference in them and you. The difference should be Christ, but does the difference look anything like him (1 John 2:5,6)? Those in the world are very smart. Smart enough to know what a Christian says and does, places he goes, what he wears, and what he sees are not the same as what they or others in the world do.
Our lips and our lives cannot teach a mixed message. In Matthew 23:1-12, Jesus described the hypocritical teachers of the law and warned his disciples, “Do not according to their works; for they say, and do not” (v. 3). It would be great if those who made accusations of hypocrisy toward Christianity knew that verse. Maybe it would turn their attention more to Jesus than the faults of those who call themselves after his name.
God forbid some opponent of Christ would be influenced by careless hypocrisy in our lives. We cannot take the proclamation of “hypocrites” lightly. We need the Lord to help us to be “careful preachers.” We cannot be careless in the eye of the public. We must be genuine and not a fraud. We should not be one who is mean in the world and good only among those who are Christians. You may fool the world, but you cannot make a fool of God (Galatians 6:7,8).
