The Cure for Church Hypocrisy

The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.

Michael Reeves
Loving the glory of men more than the glory of God is making us have a wrong perspective in which we are big and God is small, and therefore Christ is a small Savior, and the great truths of the gospel, like justification by faith alone, are not really hitting and so that love of the glory of man, rather than the love of the glory of God, just has these roll out implications right across church life.

Collin Hansen
We must fight the collective sin of allowing anything but the gospel to be the cause of our unity. Now that’s not my line. I love that line, but it belongs to Michael Reeves, president and professor of theology at Union School of Theology. But I think I’ve said just about the same thing dozens of times to explain what we do at the gospel coalition, and I’ll repeat and adjusted a little bit we fight the collective sin of allowing anything but the gospel to be the cause of our unity. Well, Michael Reeves has published a couple recent books with crossway that grabbed my attention. First, gospel people, a call for evangelical integrity back in 2022 and then evangelical Pharisees, the gospel as cure for the church’s hypocrisy in 2023 and I just love Michael’s perspective on why we must define evangelicalism, theologically, as people who rally together around the gospel alone. Michael joins me now on gospel bound to explain ortho cardia and the cure for evangelicalism, and we’ll discuss his latest book, preaching a God centered vision. Michael, thanks for joining me on gospel bound. Hey.

Michael Reeves
Thanks, Colin, great to be with you.

Collin Hansen
Michael, what is the urgency behind these? These two little books from 2022 2023 they read to me like a prophetic call. What was it that prompted you to action? Well,

Michael Reeves
I felt with gospel people that there was a good deal of confusion over what the gospel is, and therefore what it is that unites us. And therefore we seem both sides of the Atlantic. We seem riven by tribalism, tribalism that is informed by our own little traditions in each tribe, and therefore not finding unity in the Gospel, and not knowing how to find unity in the gospel because of disagreement on what that gospel is. So that’s what I was trying to get clear on in Gospel people, really, it was an argument from Romans to say, here’s the gospel. Romans, one to 11. Romans, 12 to 16. That’s what we find our unity in. I then wrote evangelical Pharisees, kind of as the bad cop to gospel people as the book to say we can easily affirm the gospel as the as the truth we rally around, and yet find ourselves practically denying it. And so I wanted to look at ways in which we, while nominally affirming the gospel, might find ourselves actually having quite a weak hold on it. Was

Collin Hansen
there a precipitating event or situation or simply something you’d picked up over the years or over time. I

Michael Reeves
think what I saw was not so much you might expect me to say, all the falls from grace of evangelical leaders, some of the scandals, that sort of thing. It actually wasn’t that so much. Just a little drip, drip, drip. In church culture things that I think often being dismissed as small moral peccadilloes, that I thought actually, I think these are theologically freighted that there’s a weak hold on the gospel that’s leaving us with a culture that looks spiritually shallow, that looks glib, that looks superficial, and actually that’s to do with our hold on the gospel. It’s not just about morality.

Collin Hansen
What do you think Michael is the most significant factor compromising our Gospel integrity today

Michael Reeves
at the heart, I think, of, well, what John, in John’s Gospel says is the problem for the Pharisees, I think, is the heart of the issue to for us today, that John says the reason that the Jews, in his Day, the Pharisees, would not confess Christ publicly was because they loved the glory of men more than the glory of God, and that, I think, is our issue. And loving the glory of men more than the glory of God is making us weak in ourselves and therefore prone to people pleasing. I. It’s making us anxious, longing for the affirmation of others. It’s making us have a wrong perspective in which we are big and God is small, and therefore Christ is a small Savior, and the great truths of the gospel, like justification by faith alone are not really hitting and so that love of the glory of man, rather than the love of the glory of God, just has these roll out implications right across church life.

Collin Hansen
You’ve already mentioned these issues on both sides of the Atlantic. How does your location in the UK influence how you write about evangelicalism as a movement. No doubt, American trends affect you for better or worse. But what does it look like from either side? You spend a lot of time and of course, on both sides,

Michael Reeves
yes, so to use the word evangelical feels quite different on both sides of the Atlantic. So globally, evangelicalism certainly doesn’t have the political weight that it does in the States and that that isn’t that evangelicals are not politically concerned, but they but politics isn’t so divided in that way, so to say, in Britain or in France or in Sweden or in Kenya, I am evangelical. Doesn’t mean you necessarily know how I’m going to vote. And I felt that that’s quite helpful, that within American evangelicalism, I think it’s easy to be able to be caught up entirely with American problems. That’s completely understandable. What I wanted to try to do is give a bit more of a global perspective, and to do so by starting with saying, Okay, what is scripture saying about what the gospel is, rather than what is culturally understood to be evangelicalism? Well,

Collin Hansen
I know, I think this came out in some of our early conversations about your book were how I remember reading it, thinking, How will American evangelicals in this context receive that? Because I loved what you were saying, but there was just confusion because of how those how the terminology differs, especially in public discourse, especially in political discourse, and even a lot of Evangelicals themselves are confused, not defining themselves theologically, or as we see through the Ligonier study of theology every single year, many people who are evangelicals seem To have almost no theological awareness at all, but are listed as such because of perhaps their cultural or their political leanings.

Michael Reeves
That’s a difference between the American situation and somewhere else in Kenya. You simply wouldn’t have that if you’re evangelical. It’s an evangelical by conviction,

Collin Hansen
right, right? Well, I think it’s one thing that’s refreshing when I spend time in the UK, around the world, where I’m not dealing with that and yet, nevertheless, that’s the context we have in the United States. Absolutely work through, but it requires books like yours to help with that discipleship. Let’s focus more on this term of evangelical Pharisee. You don’t expect to see those two words juxtaposed. Explain a little bit more of what you’re getting at with that term.

Michael Reeves
Well, what I did in Gospel people is to show the the big central heads of the gospel, which I put under the terms the revelation of the Father, the redemption of the Son and the regeneration of the Spirit. And those three terms, I thought, actually capture the anti evangelical theology of the Pharisees. These were precisely the problems that the Pharisees had, were with Revelation, redemption and regeneration. And so I wanted to use those as the lens through which to understand ways in which we might be at fault in our understanding of Revelation, redemption and regeneration. So for the Pharisees, they were see they had a problem with Revelation in that they were seeing, first of all, Scripture as an end in itself, a text to be mastered. And secondly, they they would add to the Word of God the traditions of men. So there’s a problem there with their understanding of Revelation, and we often see that in evangelical circles, a a cerebral focusing on Scripture as the object of faith in and of itself, and an adding to Scripture with with redemption, you see the classic parable Jesus has of the Pharisee and the tax collector. This. This failure of the Pharisee to understand his need for redemption, and that, I think, also tracks through into evangelical and nominally evangelical circles, where there’s a sense that maybe I’ve graduated beyond the need for justification, that I’m now so sanctified by either by my life or by my culture, that I can stand and boast before God, and then in terms of regeneration, I think the the Pharisees didn’t see their The problem being in the heart. So Jesus talks about it’s not what comes from outside that corrupts, but what comes from the heart that corrupts. And so there was a blindness in the Pharisees to the problems and the depth of the problems in the human heart. And that too, I think we see in modern evangelical circles where a thin view of sin is meaning my level of repentance will simply be at a I’ve not quite lived up to how I know I could be. I don’t have a real sense of the depth of my sin, and therefore I can’t have the depth of joy in God, grief for my sin, a depth of the repentance and hatred for my sin, so all those ways in Revelation, redemption and regeneration, I think the Pharisees problems are tracked out for us today.

Collin Hansen
You identify humility as the heart of what you’re calling for an evangelical integrity. Here’s a quote that I really liked from you, evangelicalism is in need of much healing, but it needs no other cure than the Gospel itself. It needs only integrity. Explain, I think you already did a little bit there about how we confess our great need, which then understands the work of grace, the evangelical work in our life. But tell us a little bit more. Why is humility in particular the heart of that evangelical integrity? I

Michael Reeves
think it comes back to the John 1243, that loving the glory of men more than the glory of God is, is the is the fundamental problem? The Gospel leads us in exactly the opposite direction, He must increase, I must decrease. And that is the mark of spiritual health. And when I find myself decreasing because of a an increased adoration of Him, what that does is I recognize myself as a mere creature, as a as a wretched sinner. I appreciate the weight that the height of Christ’s mercy to me as a sinner, and that realization, that integrity personally actually leads to a corporate integrity, because it’s only when I have an awareness of the depth of my own sin and I become more concerned with the glory of God than with my own glory. Only then can I find unity with other believers, if I’m all concerned about my own glory, then I’m constantly going to be in fighting and so that prioritizing of the glory of God over my own glory is going to Be the precondition for evangelical unity.

Collin Hansen
The opposite of that comes when you talk about heretics boasting of their devotion to Scripture. Let me quote you here again. You say the pages of church history are littered with heretics who boasted of their devotion to Scripture yet failed to spot how their biblical language concealed biblical thinking. There’s a lot to unpack there. Michael, how do we keep from falling into this trap today?

Michael Reeves
I think the mentality that’s revealed there is one of a very simplistic view of the Bible, where I can roll out a proof text. And actually the proof text is really just supporting a view I’ve come to by my own little tradition, and therefore one of the marks of ill health, I think, of lack of humility in evangelicalism today is the fact that we’re not listening to the church as a whole down through the ages. So CS Lewis point about for every new book you read, read an old one. Or if you can’t do that, make it every third one is is pretty. Protecting us from the country bumpkin effect of thinking that my view for which I can find a proof text must be the biblical view, and any view that sounds slightly strange to me, I’ll reject. And actually that’s a view based on tradition, not on a deep searching of the Word of God done with the aid of the wisdom of the past. Stand standing on the shoulders of giants.

Collin Hansen
Well, your latest book preaching a God centered vision, love for you to talk a little bit about that. But I’m wondering specifically, Michael, how can preaching help restore this evangelical integrity?

Michael Reeves
I and this is one of the motivations behind writing this preaching book. So the preaching book was not written to be a how to book. Here’s how to do your sermon. It was really a what is preaching? Let’s, let’s get the blueprint right before getting all the details in place. And and I felt that some of the preaching we see in evangelical circles today actually can contribute to the hypocrisy, because what it does is it treats Scripture as an end in itself, as if I can simply walk people through the meaning of Scripture, like it’s an English comprehension exercise, and then say, right, if you downloaded that information, now we’re done. And what that does is it creates scribes, not disciples. It creates a people who are puffed up with their own biblical knowledge and not humbled finding themselves loving their savior, Jesus, Christ. So what I wanted to do in the book preaching is is show people a biblical view of preaching, in which Jesus is heralded in all his glory through scripture, and that’s when people will be humbled when they have a sight of him. So I think John three is a good example of this when, when Nicodemus simply doesn’t understand what it is to have a heart change, Jesus immediately talks about the Son of man being lifted up. That’s what the preacher needs to do, lift up the Son of man in all his glory, so that hearts are changed, and that’s where the integrity will come from.

Collin Hansen
I love that. Give us a couple examples of preachers that we could listen to and learn from. In particular, have a feeling you’re going to mention Martin Lloyd Jones along these lines. But go ahead, give us some examples models you think do this well, that we can, that we can emulate

Michael Reeves
one preacher who, who I really appreciate, and this would be Charles Spurgeon, who he’s he’s seeking to be really scriptural, but for the end, not of filling your head with scripture, but Using that as fuel to show you Christ, and he’s so relentless on that, from when he started his ministry to when he ended, he said, right at the beginning of His ministry, said, I propose that the subject of this house be the person and work of Jesus Christ. And right at the end, he said he there was the very last words he ever preaches. Were this great peroration on the graciousness, the beauty, the majesty, the glory of Christ, the one he’s always, always heralded. So Spurgeon has always been a bit of a model in that for me, and yes, Lloyd Jones, for Lloyd Jones, what he adds is really the doctor mentality. He is such a Puritan type soul doctor, he’s applying the gospel to the ways in which your heart is sick to heal you. So he’s not just holding out information, though he’s so information rich, there is light there, but he causes heat, the heat of adoration, worship.

Collin Hansen
Well, that leads right into a new term. I think for me, you say that evangelicalism, quote has never been about doctrine alone. Consistent evangelicals must apply their theology and so care about Orthodoxy, right doctrine, orthopraxy, right practice and ortho cardia, right heart later you write the quote, There is no true orthodoxy orthopraxy without orthocardia. All right. Tell us more about this, orthocardia.

Michael Reeves
Well, the reason I picked on ortho cardia is I think it’s possible for us to make the Pharisees mistake of saying, Look, on paper, I’m absolutely orthodox. I can subscribe to my my denominations, confession of faith. I can do that, but you can do that and not love the Lord your God. You can add to that orthodoxy with a. A an eminently impeccable moral, even religious life. Look at the Pharisee in Luke 18. So he thinks he’s keeping the 10 Commandments. And the reason the Pharisee is not keeping the 10 Commandments in Luke 18 is he’s saying, I’m keeping the Sabbath, I’m worshiping the Lord. And yet he actually his trust is in himself and his own works. And he doesn’t keep the second table of the law because he doesn’t love his neighbor, the tax collector. He tramples on the tax collector. Shows him no mercy whatsoever. And so while there’s an apparent orthodoxy and orthopraxy there, there isn’t that rightness of heart, that orthocardia there in his heart, he’s the grossest Transgressor of the law, and he’s not loving the Lord his God. He’s not loving his neighbor as himself. And so the orthocardia, the rightness of heart, is really telling us about whether is integrity to the orthodoxy and orthopraxy, or whether those are just smoke screens of hypocrisy.

Collin Hansen
Reminds me a little bit of Jonathan Edwards there as well,

Michael Reeves
right? Absolutely another key influence. Yeah.

Collin Hansen
Well, my work in cultural apologetics, it’s, it’s designed to expose and clear away the cultural hindrances of the gospel. And there was a line in in your work that I well as a story, I just loved it. It was like you were writing it just for me, as I have to read it here. Quote, because the gospel is not the unifying factor, people become increasingly blind to the distinction between gospel issues and cultural differences. I never forget the story that Norwegian friends told me of some theological conference in Norway. Into the conference, walked a woman wearing makeup. The men were so shocked, they dropped their cigars into their beers, just like that story. Why is it, Michael, so tempting for us to substitute our cultural Moors for the gospel norm?

Michael Reeves
I think, on the one hand, it happens because, like the Pharisees, we’re listening to the traditions of men more than the commandments of God, and so we just hear what the world is saying more than what God is saying. But it’s also tempting, because what traditions do is they they boost our pride, because we live according to traditions, we find ourselves walking, talking, acting like the leaders of our particular tradition, and so very easily we find by tradition. I can feel myself to be in the right I’m walking the right way, I’m talking the right way, and find myself blind to this lack of orthocardia, and so it’s partly an ignorance of Scripture, and not listening to Scripture, the temptation of listening to the tradition. But also there’s that, the appeal of pride, that a tradition is so much easier to keep. I can walk and talk in all the right ways that my circle will affirm and therefore feel that I’m right with God and His people. But actually, what that tradition and its grip on me has done is left me blind to the deeper ways in which the Word of God should diagnose and convict me of my sin.

Collin Hansen
You wrote in here what I would happily adopt as a good summary of our work at the Keller Center for Cultural apologetics. Here’s another quote. What marks out true evangelicalism is that it constantly reforms, not to conform to each new era as others might, but to be faithful to the gospel amid the particular challenges each one presents perfect summary for what we do at the Keller Center for Cultural apologetics. And another thing I love, Michael about your work is your commitment to the both. And I’ve got a couple more examples here. Quote, a true evangelical spirit has both a strong doctrinal backbone and a body of wisdom and grace. Another, another quote here to see an end to both the fractious tribalism that elevates other issues to the level of gospel and the treachery that gives up the essential truths of the faith. I love it. Michael, what is so appealing though about that either or, and how do we resist it, at least, so that we ensure that we’re keeping that orthodoxy and orthopraxy and orthocardia together?

Michael Reeves
I think, is that the. Evangelical way by which I mean the evangelicalism as defined by how Paul speaks of the Gospel throughout Romans, how he summarizes it in the first few verses of Romans. One, what that calls us to is a path of discernment and wisdom, which is a difficult path to recognize where I’m being tribal or where I am blurring boundaries, and those are the where we’re those are the sides in which we might fall off this path of wisdom. But but that’s what we’re called to in Romans, where Paul writes of the gospel that should bind us together, and in Galatians, says we may never depart from that gospel. There’s no other gospel to depart to, to go on to, but the last few chapters of Romans, he says, Now brothers love one another with a brotherly love. Don’t cause each other to stumble over matters of disagreement which are not the gospel. Each special days and things to eat. Watch out for those who cause division. That’s where he ends. So the whole council of Romans seems to be teaching us not only what the gospel is, but how to live with discernment and wisdom as people of this gospel.

Collin Hansen
We’ve been talking here with Michael Reeves about a few different works. Gospel people, a call for evangelical integrity, published in 2022 evangelical Pharisees, the gospel is cure for our for the church’s hypocrisy 2023 and then preaching a God centered vision, which is new in 2024 but I think Michael, a lot of people are going to know your work through your book, delighting in the Trinity. And just before we came on air here, I saw that you just celebrated the 32nd printing of that book, and I just can’t imagine a better subject for so many hundreds of 1000s of people to have read. What have you learned in the process? Not so much in in writing that book, but in the reception, just a really positive reception to that book, about about God’s work among his people today.

Michael Reeves
I think what it’s shown me that the feedback I’ve had from so many is that the heart of many of their pastoral problems, their difficulties in the walk and in the Christian life, is their lack of clarity on who God is, and so often they can walk through the Christian life and feel I understand certain things about justification and and the Christian life, but I I’m unclear on what sort of God we have, and getting clarity on the beautiful, glorious nature of who God is suddenly means that they get this orthocardia In that they find here’s a god I can truly love and adore and worship and enjoy.

Collin Hansen
Well, that’s very heartening. It’s very encouraging. Want to read one more quote to end. We’ve had a lot of great quotes from your work here, because I think this exhortation, this encouragement, is so fitting for a podcast hosted by the gospel coalition. You’re right for evangelicalism. Being a gospel movement is, and always has been a renewal movement. We seek to renew ourselves and the church around the gospel, and never vice versa. It is a reformation movement about adhering ever closer to the gospel in thought, word and deed. On that reformation hangs the future of evangelicalism. Amen. Thank you, Michael,

Michael Reeves
Thank you so much, Collin.