Parenting is hard. It’s wonderful. But it’s hard. It’s hard because we are dealing with little sinners as we labor every day to raise them in the fear and admonition of the Lord (Eph 6:4). But it’s hard because we are, at the same time, also dealing with big sinners—ourselves.
I’ve been married for nearly twenty years, and I’ve been a daddy for almost fourteen. While marriage has been a powerful means to expose my sin, parenting has been particularly effective in putting my selfishness, impatience, and tendency to frustration on full display. Most painful, however, has been the realization that hypocrisy in my life deeply undermines my attempts at training and discipling my children. Just as a teacher can only take their disciple as far as they’ve gone themselves, I can’t expect my children to heed my words if my words don’t correspond to my practice.
The Scourge of Hypocrisy
Hypocrisy is a vice that Scripture often denounces. Jesus spoke regularly on the topic of hypocrisy, using the Pharisees as the supreme example of how not to conduct one’s spiritual life. These men were characterized by outward religiosity that had no correspondence to an inward love for God or people (Matt 15:8-9; 23:1-36).
The Pharisees were driven, as Jesus noted, by a desire for man’s praise and a craving to be recognized for their outward acts of righteousness (Matt 6:2-6; 23:5-8; John 5:44). Most deplorably, these leaders required of others what they refused to do themselves. They told people how to live a life pleasing to God but did not practice what they preached (Matt 23:3; Rom 2:21).
This is hypocrisy at its most obvious. When we see a person telling someone else what they should do and yet refusing to follow their own counsel, we intuitively sense that something is wrong. We conclude that the hypocrite can’t really believe what he is saying, for if he did, he would do what he is telling others to do.
When it comes to spiritual truth, hypocrisy is deadly. It is deadly for the person guilty of hypocrisy because it deceives that person into thinking they are righteous on the basis of their ability to speak the truth. Mere words, however, no matter how true, are no evidence that a person is right with God (see Num 23-24; 2 Tim 3:5-7; James 2:14). Yet, the more hypocrisy is allowed to flourish, the deeper the hypocrite’s self-deception grows.
But hypocrisy is also harmful for the person receiving the insincere counsel because it hinders the recipient from seeing the reality of what is being said. The recipient could reason this way: “If what that person says were true, surely they would believe and obey it. But they aren’t doing what they are telling me to do. Therefore, what they tell me must not be true.” When a person speaks to us about the power of the gospel, the necessity of faith and obedience, and lays out various biblical principles on how to love and please God while living contrary to those instructions, we will be tempted to doubt the truth of what they speak.
When it comes to parenting, we are naïve if we think our children are any different when they sense incongruence between our words and our actions.
Parenting: A Life of Constant Instruction
Parenting requires constant instruction. Although the form of instruction changes as children grow older (from mostly monologue in the younger years to increasingly more dialogue in the preteen and teenage years), the necessity of constant instruction remains in place until our children leave our homes. This is because God has called parents to raise their children in the fear and discipline of the Lord (Eph 6:4), and this calling requires that we teach our children day in and day out who God is, how we can be right with him, and how to live in a way that pleases him (Deut 6:1-4).
We must teach our children how to trust in Christ (Acts 16:31), live a life of wisdom (Eph 5:15-17), and cultivate godly character and conduct (Eph 4:1ff). We instruct our children about their hearts and the necessity of love for Christ and love for others (1 Cor 16:22; 1 John 4:20). We discuss the necessity of regeneration (John 3:8), the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22-23), humility (James 4:6), joy in God (Ps 43:4), perseverance through trials (Rom 5:1-5), diligence (Prov 13:4; 21:5; Col 3:23) spiritual discipline (1 Tim 4:7), self-control (Prov 25:28), forgiveness (Eph 4:32), and genuine repentance (2 Cor 7:10-13).
It’s possible, however, to do all of this and yet find our labor mostly ineffective. Why? One possibility is that we’ve only taken the posture of a teacher and neglected to nurture a genuine relationship with our child. Because they don’t sense love from us, our instruction carries the discordant tones of clanging cymbals (1 Cor 13:1-3). But it’s also possible that our instruction is ineffective because our hypocrisy has blinded our children from the reality of what we say.
The Need for Parental Log-Removal
When Jesus instructed his disciples to first remove the log from their own eye before they started working on the speck in their brother’s eye (Matt 7:1-5), he certainly wasn’t excluding parents in his admonition. Indeed, parental hypocrisy is particularly harmful.
Let’s initiate the process of lumber extraction with the following questions.
Do I teach my children to give others space to talk but constantly talk over them and get angry when they talk over me? Do I admonish my children to stay off screens while I am constantly looking at my phone? Do I wax eloquent on time management while spending excessive hours on entertainment? Am I exhorting my children not to complain while I fill the home with grumbling about my circumstances, other people, my job, and my trials? Do I censure my child’s condescending words toward their sibling with words that are equally condescending toward them? Do I rebuke them for their tantrums while I regularly exhibit outbursts of anger? Do I correct their lying while breaking my promises? Do I reprimand my children for disrespecting their mother while speaking harshly with her? Do I teach my children to trust God while I am constantly fretting?
While no parent is sinless, we must carefully watch over our own lives to make sure that in teaching others, we don’t fail to teach ourselves. The sequence, exhibited by Ezra the priest several centuries ago, is first to study God’s Word, then practice what it says, then teach it to others (Ezra 7:10). Ezra’s example does not imply that we must be perfect before we can start parenting, but it does remind us of the proper order: instruction comes after learning and personal practice.
But neither can we allow ourselves to error in the opposite direction. We can’t use our sin and the possibility of hypocrisy as an excuse not to intentionally instruct our children in the ways of the Lord. Jesus tells us to remove the log from our own eyes so that we will see clearly in our effort to help our brother (and our children) remove the speck from theirs (Matt 7:5). The goal of log removal is not just our personal sanctification, but the spiritual benefit of those God has entrusted to our care. When we discover hypocrisy in our lives, we must repent from it, ask our children’s forgiveness, and use the situation as an opportunity to again show them our need (and their need) for the grace of Christ.
Conclusion
Jesus warned his disciples to beware of the Pharisees because their hypocrisy was like leaven: even a little bit could influence their walk with the Lord (Matt 16:6). This principle holds true in our homes. A little hypocrisy can easily infect our children’s spiritual lives. Over time and with enough exposure, they will begin to doubt the power of the gospel and the veracity of God’s Word. Why? Because if Scripture is not working to change us, they reason, why would it ever work to change them? They will mistake external righteousness for vital faith, conclude that a verbal profession and outward religious activity is sufficient to secure their place in heaven, and get comfortable with honoring God with their lips while keeping their hearts far from him.
While even the most sincere parents can’t guarantee the authenticity of their child’s walk with Christ, hypocrisy will do much to hinder true faith. Our calling, then, is to labor diligently to remove the logs from our own eyes so that we can see clearly to help our children with their spiritual lives and provide them with examples that can say, “Follow me as I follow Christ” (1 Cor 11:1).
