–– Paul Schlehlein
The audio version of this article is available here: YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.
Some worldwide statistics say two out of every three teens leave the church after high school. In countries where Christianity is growing, parents are tempted to dismiss these numbers as not applicable to them. For example, among the twenty countries where Christianity is growing the most, seven are in Africa: Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Ghana, Mozambique, and Tanzania.
Christians usually enjoy immense freedom of religion in places where Christianity is growing. While this is a blessing, freedom of religion can also be a detriment. Hypocrisy among Christians is much less common in countries where believers will be persecuted for following Christ.
For example, how many fake Christians do you think live in the Muslim areas of Uganda, where a Christian couple was recently poisoned by a Muslim woman? Or how about Burkina Faso, where Christians face attacks by militant Islamists? Then there is the Congo DRC, where a batch of seventy and then another forty-seven Christians were just recently murdered by devout Muslims.
Christian kids who grow up in the land of the free and the home of the brave enjoy many privileges. They face challenges, too, like an easy-in-easy-out kind of faith. This means that hypocrisy becomes especially common among church kids. This should alarm parents and push them to their knees for the hearts of their children.
There are many steps parents can take to help root out the hypocrisy in their children. Here are just two.
First, parents should ask their children probing questions, the way Paul did with the hypocritical Jews in Romans 2:17-24. He didn’t toss them broad, religious questions like, “Are you doing what’s right, John and Sally?” He pinpointed specific sins like pride, theft, adultery, and extortion. No parent should have to say of an apostate child: “I had no idea this was coming”. Parents must ask their kids scrutinising questions. They must shepherd the heart. If they do, they’ll notice the signs of hypocrisy from a mile away.
Second, parents must be aware of the various kinds of hypocrites. Like cars, fruit, paintings, and nails, pretenders come in all shapes and sizes. Some hypocrites can be sheep while others are goats, but they all have the same thing in common. They pretend to be something they are not. Consider the following ten kinds of hypocrites:
1. The Amnon Hypocrite craves lust, meaning he feigns hardships in conversations with his parents in order to enjoy sexual sins (2Sm. 13:6).
2. The Ananias Hypocrite craves praise, meaning he fakes spirituality at church in order to impress the believing members (Ac. 5:1-11).
3. The David Hypocrite craves authority, meaning he enjoys the upper hand when condemning others, all while participating in the very same sins (2Sm. 12:1-15).
4. The Esau Hypocrite craves the blessing of a good name, meaning he shows remorse for sin only because of the consequences and not for his rebellion against God (Hb. 12:16-17).
5. The Gehazi Hypocrite craves possessions, meaning he creates deceptive stories with his superiors in order to benefit himself (2Ki. 5:22).
6. The Gibeonite Hypocrite craves sympathy, meaning he employs extravagant actions to showcase his supposed oppression so that he can gain the pity and comfort of others (Jos. 9:1-15).
7. The Judas Hypocrite craves money, meaning he uses religious language to cloak his real desires for wealth (Jn. 12:4-6).
8. The Peter Hypocrite craves acceptance, meaning he changes his convictions depending on the audience in order to gain their approval (Gal. 2:13).
9. The Pharisee Hypocrite craves adoration, meaning he pushes himself out front so that his spiritual deeds are seen, all while living wickedly behind closed doors (Mt. 23).
10. The Simon Magus Hypocrite craves power, meaning he claims Christ and baptism in order to impress his friends and clientele (Acts 8).
In sum, parents must be aware of the pros and cons that freedom of religion brings. One common disadvantage is that it easily creates religious hypocrites. To overcome this, parents must ask their children probing questions about their souls and know the various kinds of hypocrisy. Then they must point their children to Christ, who was never hypocritical. He was the perfect Lamb of God, who “committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth” (1Pt. 2:22).