Peter admonished “newborn babes” in Christ to lay aside all hypocrisies. It is a natural battle that every babe in Christ must face. A new believer might have an inappropriate longing to please the one who led him to the Lord rather than giving the Lord preeminence. He might perform actions in hopes that his spiritual mentor will take notice. Eventually, this fault blossoms to the point where he begins to see problems in others while failing to realize the same problems exist in his own life. He might work hard to obey the strictest of commands while missing the overall desire of the Lord in his own life. Even as a babe in Christ, he must work to lay aside hypocrisy. Until he does, he will never grow into the mature believer the Lord wants him to be.
The Bible mentions two types of wisdom: worldly wisdom (1 Corinthians 3:19) and godly wisdom (James 1:5). These distinct wisdoms oppose each other in several aspects including their relationship to hypocrisy. Man claims to live wisely and yet encourages something that counteracts true wisdom—hypocrisy. This is because God’s wisdom operates only when hypocrisy is absent. At first, this might seem quite difficult to achieve, yet righteousness is never accomplished through sinful means. The only way to demonstrate true wisdom is to do so with purity and mercy void of partiality and hypocrisy.
Hypocrites desperately desire the praise of men, yet they are unwilling to put forth the right efforts to obtain any legitimate praise. Instead, they choose to elevate themselves by demeaning others. The actions of the Pharisee found in Luke 18:11-13 best illustrate this truth. While the Pharisee was hypocritically thanking the Lord that he was not wicked like the publican, the publican was busy confessing to God how wicked he was. In order to exalt himself, the Pharisee determined to belittle his neighbour thinking that this comparison made him look better. This practice of exalting oneself while demeaning others is as old as man himself. People today choose to inflate their own pride or position by undermining others.
