Day 232

  • Principle: Hypocrisy is one of the most serious sins. 
  • Book of Mormon Reading: Alma 53:10 - 54:14
    • How are covenants a blessing?  What do these verses teach you about keeping covenants even during “dangerous circumstances?”  How can you use these versus to help keep your covenants in private?
  • Jesus Christ condemns hypocrisy and teaches how to overcome it.  Study the following parables looking for the dangers of hypocrisy and how it should be avoided.
  • The following commentaries might be helpful to further your understanding.
  • The Parable of the Two Sons:
    • “The opening sentence, ‘But what think ye?’ was a call to close attention. It implied a question soon to follow; and that proved to be: Which of the two sons was the obedient one? There was but one consistent answer, and they had to give it, however loath. The application of the parable followed with convicting promptness. They, the chief priests, scribes, Pharisees and elders of the people, were typified by the second son, who, when told to labor in the vineyard answered so assuringly, but went not, though the vines were running to wild growth for want of pruning, and such poor fruit as might mature would be left to fall and rot upon the ground. The publicans and sinners upon whom they vented their contempt, whose touch was defilement, were like unto the first son, who in rude though frank refusal ignored the father’s call, but afterward relented and set to work, repentantly hoping to make amends for the time he had lost and for the unfilial spirit he had shown.” (Talmage, Jesus the Christ, p. 532.)
  • Self Judgement in Matthew 21: 33-41
    • “Again the Jews were compelled to make answer to the great question with which the parable dealt, and again by their answer they pronounced judgment upon themselves. The vineyard, broadly speaking, was the human family, but more specifically the covenant people, Israel; the soil was good and capable of yielding in rich abundance; the vines were choice and had been set out with care; and the whole vineyard was amply protected with a hedge, and suitably furnished with winepress and tower. The husbandmen could be none other than the priests and teachers of Israel, including the ecclesiastical leaders who were then and there present in an official capacity. The Lord of the vineyard had sent among the people prophets authorized to speak in His name; and these the wicked tenants had rejected, maltreated, and, in many instances, cruelly slain. In the more detailed reports of the parable we read that when the first servant came, the cruel husbandmen ‘beat him and sent him away empty’; the next they wounded ‘in the head, and sent him away shamefully handled’; another they murdered and all who came later were brutally mistreated, and some of them were killed. Those wicked men had used the vineyard of their Lord for personal gain, and had rendered no part of the vintage to the lawful Owner. When the Lord sent other messengers, ‘more than the first,’ or in other words, greater than the earlier ones, the most recent example being John the Baptist, the husbandmen rejected them with evil determination more pronounced than ever. At last the Son had come in person; His authority they feared as that of the lawful heir, and with malignity almost beyond belief, they determined to kill Him that they might perpetuate their unworthy possession of the vineyard and thenceforward hold it as their own.
      “Jesus carried the story without break from the criminal past to the yet more tragic and awful future, then but three days distant; and calmly related in prophetic imagery, as though already fulfilled, how those evil men cast the well beloved Son out of the vineyard and slew Him. Unable to evade the searching question as to what the Lord of the vineyard would naturally and righteously do to the wicked husbandmen, the Jewish rulers gave the only pertinent answer possible—that He would surely destroy those wretched sinners, and let out His vineyard to tenants who were more honest and worthy.” (Talmage, Jesus the Christ, p. 534–35.)
  • The Rejected Stone Matthew 21: 42-46
  • Hypocrites Matthew 22:18
    • “Taking the New Testament alone, you will gain little idea of the kind of life the Romans led in Palestine, the kind of life that the Christ condemned, and yet as I have already said, it has seemed to me that the one sin that the Savior condemned as much as any other was the sin of hypocrisy—the living of the double life, the life we let our friends and sometimes our wives believe, and the life we actually live. (J. Reuben Clark, Jr., Church News, 2 Feb. 1963, p. 16.)
      “The word hypocrite is translated from a Greek word meaning actor. A hypocrite is an actor, a pretender. He assumes roles which do not reflect his true feeling and thinking. He does not present his real self to others. There is pretense, subterfuge, show, sham, and deceit in his behavior. In the make-believe atmosphere of the theatre we recognize that actors are pretending to be someone else. In everyday life, however, we expect people to be themselves, to act without pretense, sincerely and honestly.” (Lowell L. Bennion, “Jesus the Christ,” Instructor, Apr. 1964, p. 165.)
  • Additional Study: