TXAB: The Christ Almighty Blog

Matthew 6.5-6.Throughout history people have prayed publicly for various reasons. Some noble, some not.And a regular problem throughout history has been the person who gets up and prays publicly, not because they legitimately wanna talk with God, or call to him for help. It’s because they wanna be seen praying. They wanna look religious. Usually so they can look more religious than they actually are. In other words hypocrisy.Nothing annoys Jesus like hypocrisy, which is why he tries to discourage his followers from doing this. Although you know some of us do this anyway.Matthew 6.5-6 KWL5“When you pray, don’t be like hypocrites who enjoy standing in synagogues and major intersections,praying so they might be seen by the people. Amen! I promise you all, they got their credit.6When you pray, go into your most private room with the door closed.Pray to your Father in private. Your Father, who sees what’s private, will credit you.”Standing was how the ancients prayed. They didn’t kneel, bo…

Mark 8.14-21 • Matthew 16.5-12 • Luke 12.1.After the most recent encounter Jesus had with Pharisees—namely where they wanted an End Times sign from him,not because they wanted proof Jesus is Messiah, but so they could shred his “sign” as bogus—Jesus decided to remind his students what sort of people they were dealing with. Not that all Pharisees were this way… hence his choice of metaphor.Mark 8.14-15 KWL14The students forgot to take bread,and they hadn’t one roll with them in the boat.15Jesus instructed them, saying “Listen. Watch out for the Pharisees’ yeast and Herod’s yeast.”Matthew 16.5-6 KWL5Jesus’s students, coming to the far side of the lake,forgot to bring bread.6 Jesus told them, “Listen and pay attention to the Pharisees and Sadducees’ yeast.”Luke 12.1 KWLWhen the crowds of 10,000 gathered together such that they were trampling one another,Jesus first began to tell his students,“Watch out for yourselves about the Pharisees’ yeast—which is hypocrisy.”Luke, which has this sto…

When we think we’ve found exceptions to Jesus’s expectations.Popular culture, especially popular Christian culture, uses the word Pharisee as a synonym for legalist. That’s what we presume the Pharisees’ problem was: They overdid it on God’s commands. They had all these additional rules they insisted people follow, and it meant they not only missed the point of all the commands they meant to uphold, but all the grace.Thing is, Jesus calls them hypocrites.Legalists are many things. Like graceless, unloving, impatient, unkind, dispassionate towards people ’cause all their passion is for their doctrines. But hypocrite means someone who’s pretending to be what they’re not. And for the most part, legalists truly are legalistic. They’re not faking anything: They really do nitpick commands all the way down to the most unreasonable details. They really do judge people harshly on these details. And even though many can rightly be accused of holding people to standards they themselves don’t fol…

Way easier to pretend you have it, than actually grow it. Y’might know we Christians need to be fruity: We Christians have to do good works and produce good fruit. Namely the Spirit’s fruit. You know Paul’s list in Galatians—Galatians 5.22-25 KWL22 The Spirit’s fruit is love. Joy. Peace. Patience. Kindness. Goodness. Faith.23 Gentleness. Temperance. The Law isn’t against such things.24 Those who follow Christ Jesus crucify the flesh with its pathology and desires:25 If we live by the Spirit, we can walk by the Spirit!Problem is, there are plenty of hypocrites who don’t live by the Spirit, don’t walk by the Spirit… but want everyone to think they do. So they fake the Spirit’s fruit.There are three ways to do it; all of ’em rather easy. The most common method is to change all the definitions. The popular culture has its own definitions of all these things, so hypocrites simply borrow those definitions and claim they’ve got fruit.Love is an obvious example: Pagans haven’t a clue what lov…

The reason pagans assume Christians are phonies is ’cause we are. So let’s stop that.HYPOCRISYhə'pɑk.rə.sinoun Pretense: Practice of claiming beliefs or moral standards which one doesn’t truly have.2. Inconsistency: Practice of claiming beliefs or moral standards, but one’s own behavior demonstrates otherwise.[Hypocrite 'hɪp.ə.krɪtnoun, hypocritical |hɪp.ə'krɪd.ə.kəl| adjective.]The Greek word ypókrisis literally means “over [the] face.” In the ancient Greek religion, whenever someone claimed they spoke for the gods, they’d put on a bit of a show. When a man claimed Zeus spoke through him, he’d assume a deep voice, exaggerated gestures, and perform a sorta impersonation of Zeus. (Since we’re talking about fake gods, it was totally an act.)
Comic and tragic masks. WikimediaThis “prophetic” acting evolved into Greek drama. Certain “gifted” poets, whom the Greeks believed had some divinely-inspired prophetic ability, would have actors memorize their “revelations” and present t…