BibleProject - What "Hypocrite" Means to Jesus

Episode Date: April 22, 2024

Sermon on the Mount E17 – In Matthew 6, Jesus transitions from sharing a vision for righteousness that fulfills the Torah and Prophets to talking about how true righteousness impacts religious practices. Religious practices—like prayer, serving the poor, or generosity—are meant to align our hearts with God. But Jesus noticed that many people in his day were doing religious practices to promote their own name and status. He called this behavior hypocrisy, which meant something different to him that it does to us today. In this episode, Jon and Tim discuss the original meaning of the word “hypocrite” and the differing motivations people can have for doing right by God and others.View more resources on our website →Timestamps Chapter 1: The Meaning of “Hypocrite” (00:00-10:06)Chapter 2: Seeking Reward from People or God (10:06-15:38)Chapter 3: A Reward of Honor (15:38-31:16)Referenced ResourcesCheck out Tim’s library here.You can experience our entire library of resources in the BibleProject app, available for Android and iOS.Show Music Original Sermon on the Mount music by Richie KohenBibleProject theme song by TENTS“Silk” by El Train“Brush Strokes” by Blue Wednesday and morningtimeShow CreditsJon Collins is the creative producer for today’s show, and Tim Mackie is the lead scholar. Production of today’s episode is by Lindsey Ponder, producer; Cooper Peltz, managing producer; Colin Wilson, producer; and Stephanie Tam, consultant and editor. Tyler Bailey is our audio engineer and editor, and he also provided our sound design and mix. Frank Garza and Aaron Olsen edited today's episode. JB Witty does our show notes, and Hannah Woo provides the annotations for our app. Today’s hosts are Jon Collins and Michelle Jones.Powered and distributed by Simplecast.

This is Bible Project Podcast, and this year we're reading through the Sermon on the Mount. I'm Jon Collins, and with me is co-host Michelle Jones. Hi, Michelle. Hi, Jon. So, let's start with a recap of where we've been on the Sermon on the Mount. I'm John Collins and with me is co-host Michelle Jones. Hi, Michelle. Hi, John. So let's start with a recap of where we've been on the Sermon on the Mount. Remember that the Sermon on the Mount is three parts. An introduction, a main body, and a conclusion. We've already walked through the introduction, the announcement of who's participating in God's kingdom.

We begin with the nine blessing. He says, surprise, God's kingdom is starting with y'all. You're the blessed ones, you're the salt and the light in the city on the hill. So that's the opening. Next is the main body of the sermon, which is all about living in right relationship with God and others, because, well, that's what the kingdom of God is all about. Now, the main body is large and it has itself three parts.

The first part is what we've just finished. The Torah and the prophets have shown us what it means to live in right relationship with God and others, and Jesus came to fulfill it. He opens up saying, like, hey, I'm announcing to everybody the fulfillment of the Torah and the prophets. The way of life of doing right by God and right by others surpasses what any generation of Israel has ever been able to live up to before. Today we move into the second part of the main body.

This second part is all about religious practices. A religious practice is something that we do habitually in order to live in right relationship with God and our neighbor. It could be going to church or a prayer meeting. It could be serving the poor, giving money away generously. Religious practices are meant to align ourselves with the heart of God and in doing so, make all of our relationships better. But Jesus saw that religious practices of his day were sometimes doing the opposite. That people were doing religion in order to promote themselves to seek honor and status.

A pursuit of doing right by God and others can actually end up being this distorted, self-congratulating type of practice that is very common in religious communities. He calls this the way of hypocrisy. In today's episode, we'll focus on the word hypocrisy, as it doesn't mean exactly what we think it means. In modern English, we call someone a hypocrite if they say one thing and do another. That is not what hypocrite means in the Bible.

It's hard to shake it. So what Jesus means is somebody who does the right thing, but for the wrong motive and for the wrong reason. Today we reorient ourselves to what Jesus means with the word hypocrite. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. So, hypocrite is a Greek word spelled with English letters and the accent is actually on the cr, so, hu-puh-crit-tase is the Greek word, but we say hypocrite. What Jesus means by hypocrite is not what the English word has

come to mean. So, you know, somebody gives you a lecture on like going the speed limit, and then you're like in the backseat driving with them three weeks later, and they're just like blazing up a street with a 25-mile-hour speed limit. It's the do as I say, not as I do mentality. Yeah, that is not what hypocrite means in the Bible. It's hard to shake it. So what Jesus means is somebody who does the right thing but for the wrong motive and for the wrong reason. I just looked up hypocrite in the etymology dictionary. In Greek, it meant stage actor or pretender.

Mm-hmm, that's right. Yes, actor. Yeah, an actor. Yeah, you're taking on a role to do a certain thing, but it's not really who you are. Yes. And that's, yeah. You're pretending.

You're pretending, yeah, you're pretending, which is different than doing one thing and then, or saying one thing. You can see how it's connected. Oh, totally, that's right. You can see how if someone is constantly saying, you should live this way, and then they don't, you're kind of pretending you care about that. Yeah, that's right. You're a hypocrite.

So, in that sense, you get it, but it has become very specifically that you're creating a double standard with your, that's right. With your words and your actions. Yeah, yeah, whereas what Jesus is targeting is people who are super generous to the poor, they pray a lot, and they regularly- They are doing it. Fast, they do it.

They do it. Yeah, they don't say they do it, and then they don't do it. They say they do it, and they do it. And they do it, But they're still pretending. But they're pretending, but the only person who will ever know is God. Even the people pretending might not know they're pretending. That's actually a really scary thought. It's totally scary.

Yeah, he's going to touch on this more at the end, where he anticipates that there will be people who thought they were following him and then when it finally comes down to it they don't actually know him. But that's seeded right here. You can do the right things for the wrong reasons and not even know yourself. Yeah, that's terrifying. Oh gosh. And so what he's gonna do is pick three of the most standard practices of religious devotion in first century Judaism of his day. And he's gonna show how that way of doing right

by God and others can be corrupted by hypocrisy. So he's gonna talk about generosity to the poor. He's gonna talk about prayer. And he's gonna talk about fasting, going without food for a certain period of time. And this is just like standard fare, maybe for like modern, certain forms of Protestant Christianity.

It's like praying, reading your Bible, and going to church. Just like the standard. The classics. The classics. Yeah. It's just classic. Classic devotion.

Yeah. So in first century Judaism, it's given to the poor, prayer, fasting. And he's going to explore each of them. So I'll let you open with the thesis statement of this movement. Start in Matthew chapter 6 verse 1. Be careful that you don't do your righteousness in front of other people for the purpose of being seen by them. Yeah. So you know what's interesting is that our different English translations, most of them render this, translate this practice your righteousness. Okay. The New

Revised Standard Version says, practice your piety. So they're giving that an interpretive kind of twist there where they're saying, doing right by others is being expressed- As being a pious person. Yeah, with religious piety, which means acts of religious devotion that are understood as religious devotion, like generosity of the poor, prayer, fasting. Okay. Yep.

So be careful that you don't show your right relationship with God in front of people. Yeah. For the purpose of being seen by these people. Yeah. So the qualifying statement is important. Be careful that you don't do any of your righteous devotion to God in front of people. If you stop the sentence right there, you're gonna misunderstand what he's saying.

So he qualifies it. What he means is doing it in front of people so that they see you doing these things for the purpose. So it's a quandary, actually. It's a little bit of a paradox, which Jesus always taught in these. Doing right by God and doing right by other people, if it's inherently relational. It requires you to be around people.

So what does it mean? Be careful that you don't do your righteousness in front of people. It's like, okay, that sounds weird. That's going to be tricky when I go like bring a casserole over to someone because they just broke their leg and they can't make dinner. And so it's like, look away, I'm bringing a casserole. So for the purpose of being seen by them. In other words, there's some little part in your heart and mind where you're feeling really self-congratulatory that I'm bringing the casserole over to my friend who just broke

their leg. And maybe I time it so that I bring the casserole right when there are some other friends there, you know, and they see me doing this good thing. It's about motives. This whole thing's about. It's not about you should never be seen doing good things. It's about watch your motives because all of a sudden, what is supposed to be an expression of doing right by God will be you climbing the

ladder of public honor and public notoriety in the eyes of other people. Which is also in an honor shame society is huge. It's like you're building your life around that. Yeah, that's right. So that's kind of the general statement. Be careful about your acts of religious devotion. Don't do it in front of people for the purpose of being seen by them. Because if you do, you will have no reward from your Father in the skies. If that's what you're going for, to be viewed by other people as a devout religious person, guess what? You'll get your reward. People will think that you're a devout religious person, but your father, who's in the heavens, that is, you know, we're back to this motif in the Psalms and the prophets about Yahweh's throne is in the skies

and he sees what all the people are doing and He knows their hearts and so on. And so, you won't have any reward from your Father who knows your heart. Now tell me about this idea of reward, because you're not being generous to someone to get rewarded by God or praying for someone to be rewarded by God. Yeah. Well, this is my rewarded by God. Yeah. Well, this is my pious upbringing.

Yeah, totally. You do it because it's the right thing to do and you're responding out of the love you've received by God. Yeah. You're not looking for a reward. Well, it doesn't say that. It just says if you are doing right by God and other people, you should expect that there will be a benefit.

Okay. And this is the choose life or death thing. Yeah. Oh yeah, totally. Yeah, this is all the way back to... Blessing and the curses. In the garden, blessing and the curse. Doing right by God and others leads to life. I see. And blessing, which is abundance and good stuff. Okay. Which you could call a reward. Yeah, and it is right to expect that this is biblical wisdom literature.

If you live by God's wisdom, it will generate good and benefit in the world for yourself and for others. And that's the idea of a reward. And God will be pleased with that and loves to elevate those who use his gifts well. Is that what Paul talks about when he talks about like running the race for the reward? Oh, totally. Paul has no qualms talking about how he is building towards a reward. Yeah. Yeah, and the second Timothy, which is kind of his deathbed letter, but he was in prison and was pretty sure he was gonna die. Yeah, he keeps talking about how I've run the race and I expect that crown for finishing the race well.

So Paul saw God's grace gift shown to him as obligating him to respond and to be faithful to God, to do right by God and others, and to expect a reward. Do good for good's own sake and expect that you will receive honor and benefit from God. Maybe not from others, but that honor and benefit from others shouldn't matter. That's actually what Jesus is getting at here. And that's why maybe I have a qualm with the word reward, because reward to me feels very much like

I'm going to single you out and you're going to get something special because you did the right thing or you succeeded. Interesting. special because you did the right thing or you succeeded. But this idea of like creating goodness, it's not just for you, it's for like you and your whole community. Okay, so maybe actually reward is, yeah, it's not quite the right word. It's the Greek word misthos, which is essentially recompense for work that you did. Wages? Wage, actually. Wage is a standard translation of this.

Like Jesus' later parable about the laborers in the field, and at the end of the day, they get their misthos. You've done this thing, and there is an appropriate consequence, is a negative term, recompense for the thing that you have done. So, when you go and clean up litter on the street, now the street is cleaner and the neighborhood becomes cheerier. Yeah, sure. That's kind of like the wage of your action? Yeah, the misthos.

So, what Jesus is after here is, it may be that the misthos, the wage that you're after is, you know, recognition in my community for being the kind of person who does right by God and other people. And in these three examples, he's going to go on and say, if that's what you're after, you'll get it. Got it. Yeah. If that's what you give to the poor for and pray to make sure you're seen praying. He's kind of doing a to make sure you're seen praying. He's kind of doing a be careful what you wish for thing. Yeah, totally. It'll be like congratulations.

People will view you as a righteous religious person. But God knows your heart. And for Jesus, real righteousness, real doing right by God and others means seeking to honor God and honor others for their own sake. And knowing that that kind of relationship generates benefit and value and goodness in the world and for me, that God will reward me. He's working within a Jewish worldview where God's been more generous to us than we could possibly imagine. We do right by God as a way to show that He's been gracious to me and I'm a part of the people of God. And be careful that you don't do it to be honored by

other people, but do it as you seek to honor God and know that He will honor you in return. Okay, so if I do the right thing for the right reason, I can expect to miss those, some sort of compensation from God. But what is it? Ah, well, as he's going to say, okay, so that, oh jeez, we've just been talking about one verse. It's an opening thesis statement and it's very general. The three case studies are going to fill out different examples and then he's going to have a conclusion. And the conclusion starts in verse 19, where he says, don't store up treasures for yourself on the land, where moth and rust disfigure, where thieves break in and steal.

Rather, store up for yourselves treasures in the sky, where moth and rust can't disfigure and thieves can't steal. Because where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. So now there is a debate among scholars if this is an introduction to the next section about money, or whether it's a conclusion to the discussion about true reward. And I am fully persuaded by Jonathan Pennington that it's a hinge, that it's both a conclusion to this thing about reward and it's an introduction to the stuff about money that will follow. So what kind of reward are you expecting? Well, it's in the skies, which doesn't mean you go get

it after you die. The biblical hope is for heaven and earth to be reunited. And so it's in a bank that is never going to go bankrupt and that can't ever be affected by the changing nature of history and of people. It's in God's hands. Your treasure and reward is in God's hands. The imagery for this is the blessings of Eden blessings, which is of participating in new creation and healthy relationships, abundance. Is this a different word than reward? Treasure. It is, yep, different Greek word. What you store up for yourself.

So what is it? Yeah. OK, so in each of the three case studies, what he's going to talk is about the hypocrites. So we have an example of the hypocrite who does what's right to be seen by people. And what he says at the end of each of those is, the hypocrite who prays in public because they want to be seen by other people, they have already received their reward. That's what he says three times. So it seems like the reward here is about honor. And the question is, whose honor are you really after? Are you looking to be honored by people? Because if so, then you'll get that reward. And then

in each of the three examples, he'll say, your father who sees what you do in private, and nobody ever might know what you do, he will fully reward you. So it seems like in context, it may be that the reward is specifically about honor. Okay, and this is probably really important for an honor shame society. Correct, yeah. Your public standing in the community and your reputation. Because everything hinges on that. Yeah, the cultures that you and I grew up in here in the west coast of 20th, 21st century

America, there is still an honor shame element to every culture. Sure. But it's pretty different the way you and I experience it is really different. And I think it has to do with the rise of this cultural value that, you know, every Disney movie in the last 20 years, is the champion of expressive individualism.

Yeah. It doesn't matter what anybody thinks about you. Yeah. Your honor isn't conditioned by matter what anybody thinks about you. Yeah. Your honor isn't conditioned by what anybody else thinks about you. Your honor and identity are unique to you and go find it and discover it. And there's a positive, an important thing there that shouldn't be lost, but that idea is totally foreign to Jesus' time and place. Hmm. Going after, receiving honor from the right person is really key to Jesus.

And so in his mind, he's going after the honor that will be bestowed on him by his father. To be honored by someone is to be given a position of influence and authority, which is not the same thing in our culture, always. Sure, and just recognition, like they're doing, really yeah, what honor is, is it's holding up somebody and saying, this person's way of being human is right, and they should receive recognition. But think about it, if a king is doing that,

then everyone is like, cool, tell us what to do. Yeah. Now all of a sudden you're like, that's right, that's right. You have some more authority. That's right. But in our culture, you could have a pretty dishonorable type of character, mistreats their employees.

Yes. Who is not generous at all and who just leads to a lot of poverty, but still has a ton of authority and influence. Even though everyone's kind of like, yeah, that person's kind of horrible. And that's actually the disconnect that I think Jesus in his own way is expressing here, is there are lots of different ways of gaining honor and authority and influence in the world. And there are some ways that ultimately will lead to dishonor, and it's a destructive way to live. It's for God to affirm, to look on your life and what you were all about and look on it and say, man, that you imaged and reflected my character and purpose in a way that is true and faithful.

Way to go. Keep doing more of that in the new creation. Okay, so I shouldn't be spending all my energy trying to get honor from people, like trying to make myself look good in front of people. I should care about that kind of honor. That's right. If someone has given me life and existence as a gift and then asked me to represent them, then yeah, I'm going to try and do right by them.

And I'm looking for them to say at some point, like, hey, you did a great job. That's the reward you're looking for. That's the treasure. Certainly one part of the reward. And then with the you did a great job also comes along with like, yeah, go do more of it. Here, I invite you to go do this thing. Okay. It's the invitation for more and the opportunity for more. Sure. Yeah. Is the reward.

Yeah. Clearly, it's a dense concept, which is why you can refer to it as reward or treasure. But I think the main thing is that doing right by other people because you believe it's the way of doing right by God and God will honor me and congratulate me and say like, yeah, that was way to go. That was the right thing to do for the right reason. That's a good thing to hope for in Jesus' way of viewing. But it's a good thing to hope for, especially in an honor shame society, because everything hinges on that. Correct. Yeah, that's right.

The things that you hope for in life and want and desire and the things you wanna do and accomplish. If God is gonna stand up and vouch for you, that's everything. Yeah, that's right. So Jesus is just saying, if you want the people in your community to be the ones that vouch for you, and so that's why you're doing these things,

is you want their honor, then cool, you pulled it off. Good job. But if you do that at the expense of actually getting the honor of the real true king, the honor that really matters, then you blew it. I just started using the word honor instead of reward. Oh, okay, that's fine. And it kinda started making more sense to me.

Sure, and that's the language Jesus will start using in the case studies. Okay. People who are generous in public for the purpose of being honored, to being recognized as someone in a place of influence and authority. Yep, so these are bundled concepts.

I think that works for me. Honor helps. There is something very rewarding about receiving honor from someone that it matters. Totally. You know, and maybe like the cutting edge of this is that Jesus is calling his followers to a way of life that is gonna be perceived as radical

and that there weren't categories for, certainly in Greek and Roman culture, and there were categories for it in Jewish culture, which is why he is saying what he's saying in relationship to the Torah. So if honoring God means radical generosity to the poor and I'm hoping to receive honor from God, that's probably going to be your only motivator because you go out, if Jesus goes up the road to Sepphoris, the Roman colony city, up the road, there's no value.

And being honored by them. On organized efforts to sustain the poor in that city. Yeah. The Romans, they don't care about that. Right. You know? So you're not gonna receive any honor. Yeah. You're not building any relational not going to receive any honor. Yeah.

You're not building any relational equity with the people in charge. That's right. So there are going to be ways of life and living out values that are being faithful to Jesus and doing the will of the Father, but you won't receive any public honor for that. And so really, that's the moment that raises the question of whose honor are you looking to get? Hmm. That's a good conversation. I think this language of reward in the teachings of Jesus has for some Protestants been a hang up. Based on our modern cultural definition of altruism, which is, well, if you're going to do good, just do it for that good reason,

not because you're looking to get some reward or congratulations. Yeah. But there really does seem to be this sense in the Bible of a reward. So what is it? And I think what's been helpful for me is this idea of honor.

Oh yeah. And honor not just because you want a great name, but because you want to expand the goodness of God's blessing. And so being honored by God means that you're doing it. And now you have, like you said, an opportunity to do it more, because God's honor comes with it. More responsibility and opportunity. Yeah, I think so.

It's a good thing to do something, trusting that your reward may not be here in the moment or of anybody else what they think about it, but I'm doing it because I know that it honors God and He'll honor me in return for doing this thing. And yeah, as an Aus Guinness, I don't know, kind of a Christian public intellectual, especially in the late 20th century, he came to Multnomah once when we were students there. Oh, did he? Yeah, he was a rad guy.

But he had this line saying, as followers of Jesus, we're called to live before an audience of one. Mm-hmm. That's probably now on screensavers and memes all over the place. It was an important line for me for a whole season when I was trying to reconfigure my whole view of what's right and wrong and good in the world.

And there are, yeah, there's times in following Jesus where doing the right thing won't make sense or won't seem valuable to anybody else. Yeah. But you do it because it's being faithful to God's will that you know through Jesus. And so you do it for an audience of one. And I think that's what Jesus is getting after here. That's good. Yeah. Who you're trying to impress. And in an honor shame society, you're trying to impress the people who have power and authority. But who truly has power and authority?

And in kind of this individualistic society, you're just trying to impress yourself. Be true to yourself. Yes, in our setting. In our setting. Yeah, that's right. And if I'm an image of God, what it means is I can behave in ways

that will be a very poor reflection or ways that will be a more faithful reflection. And when we behave in ways that are a more faithful reflection, it pleases God because God's like, yeah, that's what I value. And so, way to go, attaboy. Do more of that. And that's the honor you should look for. That's the honor, yeah, it's the honor you should care about.

And then there'll be other times when nobody is acting a certain way, but you know that it's the way to be faithful to God. You know it in your bones, and so you do it. And even though you'll gain no honor from other people, you do it because you're putting treasure in that bank up in the skies and trusting that when heaven and earth become one, that you'll receive your reward. So Jesus begins this section of the Sermon on the Mount with a challenge.

Don't do good things just to get a good name. If that's what you're after, you may get it, but you'll miss out on what God wants for you. I love how Tim said, If I'm an image of God, then my main joy should be learning how to reflect God's image to those around me. That way of life has so much more freedom than just trying to impress people. Yes, and it's okay to want honor. It's okay to want to have significance or be valued by others,

but what is the real honor that God wants to give us? We'll dig into that more next week when we examine three examples of religious devotion. The first one is by being generous to people who are in need. The second one is about prayer, and the third one is about fasting, and each one presents unique challenges that

puts your honor in danger. That's next week. Bible Project is a non-profit organization. We exist to experience the Bible as a unified story that leads to Jesus. Everything that we make is free because it's already been paid for by thousands of people just like you. Thank you for being a part of this with us. Hi, this is Roger Karwaski and I'm from Columbia, Missouri. Hi, this is Lauren and I'm from San Luis Obispo, California. I first heard of Bible Project on Instagram. I used Bible Project

for learning more about God and His desire for me today. I first heard about Bible Project from my wife, Debbie. I use the Bible Project for teaching middle school at my church. My favorite thing about the Bible Project is the background information on Hebrew word meaning. My favorite thing about Bible Project is the simple, clear, and sometimes humor that John and Tim bring to my listening ears. We believe the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus. Hey, this is Tyler here to read the credits. John Collins is the creative producer for today's show.

Production for today's episode is by producer Lindsey Ponder, managing producer Cooper Peltz, producer Colin Wilson. Stephanie Tam is our consultant and editor. Tyler Bailey is our audio engineer and editor, and he also provided our sound design and mix for today's episode. Frank Garza and Aaron Olson edited today's episode. JB Witty does our show notes, and Hannah Wu provides the annotations for our app. Original Sermon on the Mount music by Richie Cohen and the Bible Project theme song is by Tense.

Tim Mackey is our lead scholar and your hosts John Collins and Michelle Jones. You