What is the most urgent need of the church today? Better leadership? Better training? Healthier giving? Orthodoxy? Moral integrity? Each of these are undoubtedly needs, but underneath them all lies something even more vital: gospel integrity.
In Luke 12, when thousands had gathered together to hear Jesus, He began to say to His disciples first: “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy” (v1). That might have been unsurprising had He been warning the people as a whole, but He said it to his disciples first, to those who had already left all and followed Him.
Hypocrisy – a lack of integrity in both head and heart – was a danger even for Jesus’ disciples. Pharisaism is the sort of heartless formal religion that marks the first subtle step of spiritual decline. It is the perpetual internal menace we can overlook as we dissect and bemoan the failure of others.
