Hypocrisy is claiming to believe one thing and then doing another. (Or as I’ve heard it, your walk doesn’t match your talk.)
I’ve been thinking about hypocrisy because it’s something we church musicians deal with as a matter of course in our ministries. Being on a church’s staff means that you see a lot of human messiness than you might otherwise see. Hopefully we see it in ourselves first of all, but its commonplace existence in churches can be really disillusioning!
Here are three things that have helped me minister without disillusionment over the years:
First, anyone who comes to a church service willingly has said at least one “yes” to God. In other words, their heart has at least begun to be open to God—an openness that the Word can minister to through music.
Second, it’s no surprise that every church is full of broken people—it’s a spiritual hospital! Jesus said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners” (Mark 2:17). (Yes, we should all count ourselves in the sick category—in the “chief of sinners” category—because the only other option is believing we don’t need the Great Physician.)
Third, none of us truly knows another person’s heart—you don’t know if they have begun to repent, or whether they have even the desire to be able to repent.
What looks like hypocrisy may be, yes, hypocrisy. But a person who seems hypocritical may be walking toward repentance. They may be struggling to do the right thing, falling, and then getting up again.
