Recently I had the pleasure of addressing this fun filled topic with Pastor Jeff Denton of Waterbrook Bible Fellowship in Wylie, Texas. I am posting a question per day from that discussion. Here is question number 5.   Pastor Jeff:  Don’t you think hypocrisy creeps up on us as we’re trying to “be” the best we can be? It can even have good motives at the beginning, yet turn into legalistic hypocrisy. How do we combat this?   Dave:    This is my passion. I am a recovering legalist and as you pointed out I am a professed hypocrite. And I am happier and closer to Christ today than I have ever been. It is because of grace and finally understanding and trusting what God says is true about me.   I had been frustrated by my behavior and the behavior of other pew dwellers for many years. But what I have finally figured out is that the Bible churches
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Recently I had the pleasure of addressing this fun filled topic with Pastor Jeff Denton of Waterbrook Bible Fellowship in Wylie, Texas. I am posting a question per day from that discussion. Here is question number 4..     Pastor Jeff: Jesus had severe words for hypocrites. He took these betrayals seriously. Yet, in some sense there is always a hypocrite (or two) with us. Can’t we get rid of them?  Why does the church seem to attract hypocritical people?   Dave:  We are not like a private club that has a screening process. We let everyone in. So the church really can’t be anything but dysfunctional to some degree because we allow people in all states of belief, maturity and stability. I often joke that my family reunion would look a lot better if it were by invitation only. But it is not. My family has good folks, some bad, some smart, some not so smart, some impressive and some downright
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Recently I had the pleasure of addressing this fun filled topic with Pastor Jeff Denton of Waterbrook Bible Fellowship in Wylie, Texas. I am posting a question per day from that discussion. Here is question number 3..   PASTOR JEFF:    Don’t hypocrites think they’re fooling everyone, yet their behavior gives away who they really are? DAVE: Absolutely. It is not just a spiritual phenomenon. Al Gore has made an amazing personal comeback with his global warming documentary. I will not debate the claims of his film here. Instead I want to focus on a very inconvenient truth that all of us battle. We are natural born hypocrites. All of us. Gore outlined a list of sacrifices that we should all make to help the environment. Use a clothesline instead of the dryer. Drive a hybrid. Cut back on the thermostat and home energy consumption. But Al Gore’s personal lifestyle hypocrisy severely damaged his message.  The Chattanoogan newspaper reports that
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Recently I had the pleasure of addressing this fun filled topic with Pastor Jeff Denton of Waterbrook Bible Fellowship in Wylie, Texas. I am posting a question per day from that discussion. Here is part 2.   Pastor Jeff:   There are several reactions we can have to hypocrisy. –          Just accept it.  “It’s part of every Christian’s life. We’re all hypocrites about something.” –          Use it as an excuse for not being part of God’s family.   (Like today’s question: “Why would I hang out with those people?”   “Those people are fakes and I don’t want to be with fake people.”) –          Rationalize it or Lower our standards.   To be honest with you – all these replies simply give credence to the accusation by someone outside the church —  “Isn’t the church filled with hypocrites? I don’t want to be with them, so I don’t want Christ.”   We’ll address the issue of talking about hypocrisy with non-Christians in
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Last Sunday I participated in a series at my church, Waterbrook Bible Fellowship, that has been dealing with tough questions. Pastor Jeff Denton has been moderating discussions on difficult issues that every thoughtful believer must address. These topics have already been addressed and you can visit the website to watch or listen to the discussions. “Isn’t believing Jesus is the only way arrogant?”“Does science contradict Christianity?”“Isn’t faith a cop-out?” My assignment was a duck and cover topic. “Isn’t the church full of hypocrites?” My “bad Christian” response to that is simple. “Sure…but go ahead and join us. We can squeeze in one more.” Inexplicably, Pastor Jeff wanted me to flesh out the topic a bit more. Over the next few days I am going to post Pastor Jeff’s questions to me and my answers. Some of this is bonus material because we ran out of time on Sunday. Here is how I was introduced on Sunday. Pastor Jeff: When I think of “hypocrite”,
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Recently I wrote about my extremely brief theater career when I played the lead in my high school musical. I had the role of Don Quixote in Man of La Mancha. It was a glimpse into the future about how I would become a skinny, occasionally delusional old man with impossible dreams.  You may know that the play is based on Miguel de Cervantes’s seventeenth century novel Don Quixote. The musical unfolds as a play within a play, performed by Cervantes and his fellow prisoners as he awaits a hearing with the Spanish Inquisition. Cervantes takes on the character of “mad knight” Don Quixote and he assigns roles for the other prisoners. In my earlier post I wrote about one spiritual takeaway from the play. How the gentle “knight errant” viewed the harlot Aldonza was the subject of that article. Quixote saw a lady and gentle spirit buried deep beneath the hardened and bitter exterior. Eventually she believed what the
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For reasons I still don’t understand I was cast as the lead in our high school senior musical many, many years ago. I had never acted and I was not a trained singer. That stellar resume got me the lead role of Don Quixote. Go figure. The play was called Man of La Mancha and I realize almost forty years later how daring that choice was for small town Chillicothe, Ohio. Man of La Mancha was pretty edgy for that era. You may know that the play is based on Miguel de Cervantes’s seventeenth century novel Don Quixote. The musical unfolds as a play within a play, performed by Cervantes and his fellow prisoners as he awaits a hearing with the Spanish Inquisition. Cervantes takes on the character of “mad knight” Don Quixote and he assigns roles for the other prisoners. The musical is best known for it’s signature song “The Impossible Dream”. I did not realize until recent years how you could draw
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