It amazes me that people will believe the things they are taught from a preacher, but they will not accept the truth when it is presented to them. The truth makes people angry because it rubs against the grain of their religion.
When I study a subject, I like to look at all the evidence from every side. A lot of evidence is no good and unusable. But, this evidence does have a chance to present itself before me without prejudice.
I have studied religion and the bible for nearly 20 years now, since 1991. I have watched religious people, and I have participted in religion, for I used to be religious too.
I am still amazed that people do not know the meanings and definitions of words. Without knowing what a word means, we cannot have a full understanding of any subject that the word is used in.
I like to use the bible to get to the bottom of words and even religious doctrines, just so I can prove the doctrines wrong. Doctrines make up religion, and to live our lives according to religious doctrine is ludicrous.
Okay, what is a hypocrite. I'll tell you now a hypocrite is not someone who does not practice what they preach, and I can prove it with the Bible.
Who in the Bible were the only people who were ever called hypocrites? Was it the followers of the Jewish Messiah? No. Was it the heathen unlearned nations around Israel who worshpped other gods? No. Was it the disciples themselves? No.
The only people in the Bible who were called hypocrites were the pharisees. Many times they were accused and called hypocrites. Do you suppose they were called this because they did not practice what they preached? Let me throw a few verses of scripture to you and lets see.
Several times the messiah calls the scribes and pharisees hypocrites. You have read these verses or heard them preached, I don't need to reference them for you. If he called them hypocrites, did he mean they were not practicing what they preached?
Let's take a deeper look and see. When studying the pharisee history, and religious history, you will find that the pharisees added to Moses' law, and made it very difficult to obey and keep the law. In the original law, Israel was not to leave their tents on the sabbath day, let alone do any work. As Israel became more and more religious, they left their tents and dwellings on the sabbath day to meet in the temple for the reading of the torah. Originally, the temple was where the priests would do sacrifices of animals for the sins of Israel. So what happened. Israel became religious, and the pharisees (lawyers) studied the scriptures, used the law and legalism to
There are several historical examples of what the pharisees did to change the law, and I will cite some of them for you.
You remeber reading about a sabbaths day journey. In the original law, Israel wasn't to leave their tents on the sabbath day. The pharisees changed the law so they could move about to get around the law. Now they can do this to appease their own minds, but nobody has the authority to change Gods law.
The pharisees changed the law so that as long as they had a posession sitting somewhere in Jerusalem, they could travel a sabbaths day journey away from that object. In other words, They could go the distance of about a city block with the first change they made in the law. The second change allowed them to carry a basket to the very end of their alloable journey, set down the basket they were carrying, and they could travel the same amount of distance again, thus doubling the distance they could go away from their dwelling.
Another thing they did was to enforce the no work on the sabbath day clause. People weren't allowed to move their funriture across the dirt floors of their dwellings, because this represented plowing for planting when their chair cut grooves or "furrows" in the dirt floor.
Now, does this fit our definition of hypocrite? Someone who does not practice what he preaches? No.
A hypocrite is someone who does practice what they preach. The pharisees practiced everything they taught. They had a ritual of washing their hands before they ate, and this is what they accused the disciples of when they did not wash their hands before they ate the corn they plucked on the sabbath day. Wow! A hypocrite practices the very laws and doctrines that their religion dictates for them to follow, and they do it to a "T". How many religious people do you know who do not practice what they preach? Every one of them accuse other religions of going to hell for not believing the way they do. Every one of them claim to have the only way of salvation.
Do we have pharisees today? Of course we do. They are called _______________________. You fill in the blank. Every religion in the world fits in this blank. They are all hypocrites, because they all practice what they preach. Who had the Jewish messiah crucified? The Jewish religious pharisees. The Jewish religious priests of the temple. The very people who claim to have the only message of salvation, and their message is this, join our religion, keep our laws and doctrines, live by them day by day without breaking them, and you will have salvation when you die. Yikes!
Every religious person is a pharisee. Every pharisee is a hypocite. Every hypocrite will stand in judgement for causing others to stray away fron the truth, and they will be blind leaders of the blind, and they will all fall into the ditch together.
How do you prevent yourself from being a hypocrite? Don't do the things of the modern day pharisees. Stop being religious and recieve the only salvation message that will insure your eternal well being. Recieve the truth and reject all the lies. Religion is a lie that will lead you away from God and His truth. Read everything on this website to learn the ways of truth that will get you away from the lies of religion. If you are religious, you do not have salvation. Salvation is only received by truth, and God the creator is the truth.