Tag Archives: Hypocrisy

BIBLE, CHRISTIAN LIVING

BOB DOLE’S SOLUTION — BOB PRICHARD

Bob Dole, senator from Kansas, and presidential candidate in 1996, was severely injured in battle just a few months before the end of World War II. Initially paralyzed from the neck down, he endured years of surgeries and treatment which allowed him to walk again, but he never regained much use of his right arm. To look “normal,” he learned to hold a pen in that paralyzed right hand, and shook hands, with his left hand.

Bob Dole found a solution to his problem to look normal. But I wonder how often folks carry that Bible in hand, not to read and study it, but to “look normal.” Or even worse, to suggest a faith that is not even there. Don’t just carry your Bible, use it!

The Pharisees of Jesus’ day were more interested in looking religious than in actually being religious. Three times in Matthew 6, Jesus said, “They have their reward.” They impressed men, but Jesus did not approve. The better example is the Bereans who “received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so” (Acts 17:11).

Your Bible is the revealed word of God, “a light to your path.” Don’t allow it to just be a prop in your hand.

CHRISTIAN LIVING, CHURCH

“THE WHEELBARROW IN THE GARAGE” — BOB PRICHARD

Traveling evangelist Billy Sunday (1862-1935) once said, “Going to church don’t make anybody a Christian, any more than taking a wheelbarrow into a garage makes it an automobile.” There is plenty of truth here. The land is filled with church-going people who are less than they should be. They claim to be Christians, but their lives don’t show it. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne said that “No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.” The hypocritical life eventually catches up with even the most skillful of hypocrites.

Just “going to church” will not make anyone a Christian, but neither does staying away from church make anyone any better. There are hypocrites at church each Sunday morning, but there are even bigger hypocrites staying home, pretending that what they are doing is more important than meeting with the saints for worship. Even if some of the saints seem more like “ain’ts,” why would anyone who claims to have any interest in the things of God not be in worship?

Hebrews 10:23-25 reminds us of our responsibilities in worship. “Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;) And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.” When we assemble together, we must consider one another by provoking to love and good works, as well as exhorting one another. Power words like “provoking” and “exhorting” indicates that this is serious business.

There’s more to the story, though. The verses immediately following in Hebrews 10 warn, “For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?” (10:26-29). It is a serious thing to forsake the assembly of the saints!