‘What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you shut the door of the Kingdom of Heaven in people’s faces. You won’t go in yourselves, and you don’t let others enter either’ -Matt. 23:13.
BEING a religious leader in Jerusalem was different from being a pastor in today’s secular society. Israel’s history, culture and daily life were centred on relationship with God. Religious leaders were well known, powerful, and respected. Jesus made these stinging accusations because the leaders’ hunger for power, money, and status made them lose sight of God, and their blindness was spreading to the entire nation.
More than seven times, in this passage, Jesus hit hard against the hypocritical leaders for not living what they preached. The term hypocrite (play-actor) is derived from Greek. It means pretending to be something we are not. Sometimes, we forget or conceal our true identity as believers in Jesus. We forget that we are accountable to God. When we do that we live the way we “once walked” (Eph. 2:2) and thus are hypocrites.
We should not act like what we are not. Instead, through God’s grace, let us live in a way that shows we are “alive together with Christ”. That is a sure cure for hypocrisy.
People of God, we need to be consistent in our behavioural tendencies, in order not to give the devil a foothold to accuse us or smear our relationship with God. Some Christians have been accused of not being straightforward in their dealings; they are not consistently consistent. What does the Bible say? ‘Let your yes be yes and your no be no’. It is in this respect that we can silence the Devil and his cohorts. The Devil is the accuser of the brethren, but we should not put ourselves in a precarious situation, affording him room to achieve this. That is why we must insist on consistency.
Consistency! We need to walk a measured pace, to live the life we speak, until we see Christ’s face. This should be the desire of any and every genuine Christian, not to go the way of the hypocrite who conceals his motives to the detriment of his faith. Let us not be carried away by numbers that fill our pews every Sunday. Some are not genuine representatives of Christ. To these, the words of Jesus should still come: ‘What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites!’ Damning as it is, yet, it is true. All who toe this condemnable behaviour will receive a bashing from the Lord.
Therefore, it is time we re-examined our relationship with God. Are we really what we claim? In our offices, churches and homes, do we keep a steady character? If we maintain a consistent behaviour, the Devil will not find grounds to accuse us before the Lord.
May God’s grace be sufficient for us.
Ven. Ernest Onuoha, Rector, Ibru International Ecumenical Centre, Agbarha-Otor, Delta State, www.ibrucentre.org