Four Faces of Hypocrisy

“What is hypocrisy?”

“Pretending to be someone you’re not.”

This is typically what we think of when we think of a hypocrite. Those who have a public persona that is honorable, but a private life that is full of shame and corruption. For Christians, our thoughts probably run to the Pharisees. They were hypocrites. They were whitewashed tombs. They looked polished on the outside, but inside were rotten, worm-eaten corpses.

That is a common, and right, understanding of hypocrisy. The hypocrite does not practice what they preach. But I want us to look at four other forms of hypocrisy that Jesus warns against. These are found in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 12 verse 1 through chapter 13 verse 9. These four faces of hypocrisy are the hypocrisy of profession, of practice, of impatience, and of procrastination.

If you look, you’ll see that Luke 12:1 begins this section with Jesus warning his disciples about the dangers of hypocrisy. Then, hypocrisy comes up again in 12:56, where Jesus rebukes the crowds for being hypocrites who know how to interpret weather patterns but won’t interpret the time of Jesus’ arrival. This is what is called a literary inclusio, where a similar wording or concept is placed as bookends within a passage of literature. When you hear inclusio, think include. The purpose of the inclusio is to introduce a theme that must be included when interpreting the contents between the bookends. So Luke 12:1 is the first bookend introducing the concept of hypocrisy. Then, Luke 12:56 gives us the other bookend of hypocrisy. By rules of inclusio, we must include the warning of hypocrisy to run throughout the whole section.

So 12:1-12 warns against the hypocrisy of profession. That is, you can be a hypocrite by not going public with your faith. You see, this kind of hypocrisy is not a hypocrisy of morals. The situation here is not that of a person who looks like an angel on Sundays but acts like a devil the rest of the week. Rather, this is a person whose moral life is consistent, and yet they shy away from confessing Christ before men (verses 4-12). It is a hypocrisy of profession, a failure to go public with your faith.

Then, verse 13-34 warn us against the hypocrisy of practice. Here we see a man who thinks following Jesus is a means of gaining wealth (tell my brother to give me my inheritance). Jesus does not give in for a moment, but calls him to follow Jesus. Jesus’ way of life is self-giving. The Lord is more concerned about the kind of person you are than the amount of possessions you own. The measure of a man’s life is his treasure. Do you treasure possessions, or do you treasure the glory of Christ and His kingdom? The body is more than food and clothing. A person’s life is wrapped up in how they will respond to Jesus. Will they renounce all and follow Him, live for His kingdom? Or will they be concerned solely about their own physical needs? Following Christ requires generosity, not stinginess. It requires self-giving, not self-getting. This hypocrisy is a hypocrisy of practice. A failure to practice Jesus’ way of life.

The third hypocrisy Jesus warns against is found in verse 35-53 of Luke 12. This is the hypocrisy of impatience. That is, this is the kind of hypocrite who will follow Christ for an hour, but not a lifetime. Because they have not treasured His kingdom above all else, they grow tired of waiting for it. “But if that servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed in coming,’ … the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him… and will cut him in pieces and put him with the unfaithful” (vv. 45-46).

The final hypocrisy we are warned against is the hypocrisy of procrastination. Luke 12:54-13:9 teach us that there are more hypocrites outside of the church than there are inside the church. This is the hypocrisy that sees Christ, yet rejects him. The person who hears the gospel message and refuses to repent and believe, this person is a hypocrite. The consistent warning is “unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (13:5).

With all the ways to be a hypocrite, it is no wonder that Jesus warns us against it.