Show Notes
In this episode of Peaceable and Kind, Derek Vreeland continues the ongoing conversation about hypocrisy by turning toward a path of recovery. Rather than offering quick fixes or moralistic pressure, Derek invites listeners into a deeper vision of formation, one that reaches back into the ancient world for wisdom that still speaks today.
Drawing on Aristotle’s vision of ethics and virtue, and later Christian thinkers like Thomas Aquinas, this episode reframes ethics not as rule-keeping or performance, but as becoming the kind of people God intends us to be. Hypocrisy thrives on the disconnection between being and doing; virtue restores harmony through practiced faithfulness.
Aristotle isn’t our savior; Jesus is! But his wisdom can help Christians recover integrity, wholeness, and a life well lived.
Key Takeaways
Hypocrisy is not healed by effort alone, but by formation.
Salvation is a gift of grace, but grace is given for a way of life shaped by good works.
Aristotle’s ethics focus on becoming good, not merely doing right.
Virtue is a habit formed over time that aligns our inner life with our outward actions.
Practices shape character; character shapes desire.
Wholeness emerges when being and doing are brought back into harmony.
Books mentioned in this episode:
_Nicomachean Ethics_by Aristotle
_From Aristotle to Christ_by Louis Markos
Scriptures mentioned in this episode:
Ephesians 2:8–10
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Transcript
Narrator: Welcome back To another episode of Peaceable and Kind. I’m your host, Derek Vreeland, and I am so glad that you have joined me for this episode. We are continuing our conversation about the The problem of hypocrisy. As I said in the last episode, I’ve confessed my sins. I indeed am a recovering hypocrite And so if you’ve noticed hypocrisy popping up from time to time in your own life, or you’re just concerned With the growing amount of hypocrisy within the church. On this episode, we’re going to talk a little bit about how we enter into recovery. How can we grow beyond hypocrisy? And in doing so, well, we’re going to do a little ancient Greek philosophy and we’re going to talk about Aristotle. But before we jump into the episode, let me invite you to leave a rating or a review. And if you haven’t already, subscribe to Peaceable and Kind. Right here, wherever you’re listening to this podcast. And if you think there are people in your life that might benefit from content like this, would you share this episode or a previous episode? Hey, maybe you know a hypocrite in your life. And you don’t want to necessarily call them out, but you can share these episodes with them, and maybe it will encourage them to set aside hypocrisy and live an authentic Christian life. So in the previous episode, we talked about the problem of hypocrisy, but I want to work towards some solutions in this episode. talking about how we can truly enter into a recovery plan and recover from hypocrisy I don’t think hypocrisy needs to be our lasting legacy. I think we can be better. I believe that Sincere followers of Jesus can live whole Christian lives. It’s possible And I think that the help that we will find is not anything modern, but something ancient. And so I want us to take a journey to ancient Greece and explore the writings of the Greek philosopher Aristotle. Now, before we travel to ancient Greece, I want us to first anchor ourselves in ancient Israel So before we talk about Aristotle, I want to make a statement that should be obvious, but I want it to be very clear Aristotle is not our Savior. Jesus is. Our identity as followers of Jesus Is inexplicably tied to the salvation story given to us in Scripture In other words, followers of Jesus are following Jesus who is King, who is Lord, who is our Savior And the story that gives life to our apprenticeship of King Jesus The story that creates meaning for us is the story in Holy Scripture. And so for my own spiritual journey I have found that seasons of growth occur when I stay close to the scriptures. There have been times in my Christian journey where my habit of Bible reading has slacked off a bit I mean, even as a pastor, there have been long seasons, months, where the only time I was reading the Bible was to prepare for a Bible study or a sermon. Thankfully, those days are long behind me. Now I have much better habits of reading scripture every day, and I want to keep my life close to the scriptures And the story that the Bible tells is this beautiful story from creation to new creation. Now, the setting is ancient Israel, right? The Old Testament is the story of Israel. And the New Testament is how Jesus is the fulfillment and the long-awaited conclusion to the story of Israel. But Israel is. the context. Jesus is the protagonist. Jesus is the hero of the story. Sin and death Well, these are the twin villains, and as the story is told, the cross and resurrection and ascension of Jesus That’s the climax of the story, and then the grand conclusion is new creation. In the story that the Bible is telling, God chooses to save and rescue the world filled with human beings through humanity. And I think it’s an interesting story. God could choose to save the world any way God would come up with. And the plan God came up with was covenant. For holy God to enter into a holy relationship with broken humanity God wants to save us and indeed the world through us. So God’s answer to human corruption Which would include the tendency towards hypocrisy, was to rescue us by becoming one of us and offering this great gift of salvation. So our recovery from hypocrisy, our salvation from all of our sins, our transformation and formation and sanctification, where the stain and the marring of sin begins to disappear, all of this is the work of God that we receive as a gift And this is Christianity 101. You know this, right? Ephesians 2, 8, and 9, Paul writes, For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not the result of works, so that no one may boast. So the gospel is telling a story Of God rescuing humanity by becoming human, living the perfect human life, fully alive, fully obedient to the ways of God. And God in Jesus takes upon our sin through his death, taking away our sin And then Jesus dies going all the way into death itself to triumph over it. So the twin enemies of sin and death are destroyed because God became human. And all of this is God’s work for our behalf, for our benefit, for our salvation. So we are not Saved, transformed, sanctified, redeemed, restored, solely because of the work that we do. We receive all of this as a gift of grace. So I believe Ephesians 2, 8, and 9. And I know it’s true. I believe it. But the next verse, Ephesians 2. 10, is also true. And that’s where Paul writes, For we are what he has made us. created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life We are not saved by good works, but we are saved for good works. The entire story of Covenant is about how God wants to work with humanity to rescue humanity. So it’s not the good things that we have done that has brought about our salvation. No, we receive it as a gift. But as we receive Salvation as we receive the word planted in our hearts like a seed, as we indeed receive the Holy Spirit We then have the opportunity to cooperate with the Holy Spirit in doing good things. And so these good works, these good things done by us, have a way of working and shaping goodness in us. And this is where Aristotle can help Aristotle doesn’t save us, but Aristotle can help us recover from problems like hypocrisy. Because Aristotle shows us the way of how doing good things produces goodness within us. And as Louis Marcus puts in his book, From Aristotle to Christ, by the way, if you haven’t listened to my interview with Lou Marcos, go back and listen to that episode. His book From Aristotle to Christ was one of my favorite books from last year. And I learned a lot about Aristotle. But Lou shows us how Christians devoted to Jesus can learn from Aristotle. So he writes in From Aristotle to Christ, The same Greek philosopher who can teach Christians little to nothing about redemption can aid those who already know Jesus. To foster and practice virtues that will help them conform their souls to the image of Christ And so Luis Marcos really gives away the solution. The solution, I think, that is just sitting there to help us recover from hypocrisy. And the solution is the practice of virtue. Virtue is no longer popular in American culture, and I would say probably for Western civilization. I can’t speak for Canadians. I can’t speak for those in Latin American countries, but At least in American culture, virtue is just not talked about, and it’s certainly not taught. So we need to go to ancient Greece if we are going to learn the ancient practice of virtue and see how it can help us overcome hypocrisy. So let’s meet Aristotle Aristotle was born around 384 BC in northern Greece. He was the son of a physician. And this little that we know about his upbringing probably explains his lifelong attention to details, his wanting to learn based upon observation. We can assume this came from his father Aristotle studied under Plato. Of course, when you think about the the three great Greek philosophers, you think of Socrates, Plato, and then Plato’s most famous student, Aristotle And Aristotle learned a lot from Plato, but took Greek philosophy in a different direction. Sometimes people want to pit Aristotle against Plato, as if Plato was only interested in the speculative in the ethereal, in the idealized world of of perfect forms. And then Aristotle comes along and he’s very practical. He’s interested in physics and rhetoric and ethics and politics and the like. But that would be too much of a black and white, flattened understanding of the history. Aristotle, though he would disagree with Plato, drew a lot from Plato, and Aristotle did believe In pure forms, but he believed that form and matter were more closely interrelated. Plato had more of a dualistic division between what we would call spirit and and matter. Plato saw the physical world as less real Than the world of the pure forms. And so there was a there was a division. So if you read Plato’s very famous allegory of the cave, You see that the person enchained in the cave has to escape out of the cave into sunlight to see things as they are. For Aristotle, he did believe that there were forms, but that they were much more connected to matter. Now, I want to talk about Aristotle’s ethics, but I will say at this point that Aristotle’s understanding of the connection of Pure form and matter really helped Western theologians, Christian theologians, understand the interplay of body and soul And I would say that Aristotle’s understanding of reality is much more incarnational. Than Plato’s. But I will say Plato, as well as Aristotle, have their value in how Christians have done theology. But I do want to focus specifically, though, on ethics. Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics Is one of the most important philosophical works on the ethical moral life ever written And I muddled my way through it last year. Um, actually I started two years ago, and with a lot of fits and starts. But I would say every Christian would benefit from at least reading the first two books of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. I have to pause this episode for just a moment to tell you that the next two Bible studies in the God and the Neighborhood Bible study series are available for pre-order. Crucifixion Eight lessons on how God saves us and resurrection. Eight lessons on how God restores us. Both release on February 17th, just in time for Lent and Easter. Pre-ordered. For now, links are in the show notes So let me share with you the opening lines of The Ethics. The longer title is Nicomachain Ethics, but let me just call it The Ethics. Here’s how Aristotle begins. He writes. Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action as well as choice, is held to aim at some good. Hence, people have nobly declared that the good is that at which all things aim. So Aristotle begins his understanding of ethics as goal-oriented, which really resonates with me. I identify as an Enigram III. And my life is oriented around goals and accomplishment. So this makes sense for me. In a technical sense, this is called teleological ethics. This is ethics that are targeted towards a goal. And the shape of Christian spirituality also has a goal, and that goal is to be In full union with God, becoming fully like Jesus, Christ’s likeness is our end goal So for Christians, we would say the good that we are aiming towards is Jesus, becoming like Jesus But Aristotle says everything. So not this would, of course, he’s writing before Jesus, but he would say to us today. not just in religion, but everything. Right? So he he mentions art inquiry, like philosophical inquiry, and he says, indeed, every action by every person is headed towards some good. Now, I agree with Aristotle, even though we might define good differently Right? People that you work with or people in your neighborhood might be living for different objectives. They might define the good differently. but still they’re working towards some kind of good. I mean, even bad guys, right? Quote unquote bad guys. When bank robbers go rob a bank, they think what they are doing is good for them, right? They’re going to steal this money because the good life means having a lot of money. So for Aristotle, everybody is working towards some kind of good So just think through some some modern examples of that. So, for example, a mother sees the nurture of her child as what is good for them. A CEO of a large corporation would see making money as the good. An artist sees self-expression and beauty as the good they strive for. An addict, if we want to use a a negative example, an addict sees their next fix as the good, quote unquote. See, the good doesn’t mean moral goodness in a Christian sense, but for Aristotle, the good is what everyone Whether they have good intentions or bad intentions, is aiming for. And so if you pause for a second, just ask yourself, can you think of a single human action that is not at its root an attempt to move towards something that is good. And I can’t think of one. So for Aristotle, ethics is not so much about doing right and avoiding wrong, but about doing good and being good Often in modern times, we think of ethics or morality in terms of following the rules uh a a list of of moral laws that have to be followed or we get punished. Other people will think about ethics or morality in terms of What is one’s duty? Or what are the universal principles that would guide uh making decisions about right and wrong? But for Aristotle, Ethics was about the pursuit of living a good life. And I think this is such an important question. Because I encounter so many people who spend so much of their time asking, are we a prospering people? Are we a productive people? that they have forgot to ask the all-important question, are we becoming a good people? Now, to move back to our solution here, when we live a hypocritical life, We might find success in the eyes of others, but as we have seen, hypocrisy always leads to burnout and failure. Hypocrisy might bring short-term gains, but hypocrisy is not the way to the good life And I think we all know that. It’s just sometimes we get trapped in cycles of hypocrisy. And so Aristotle’s context for ethics around the good is really the first step towards overcoming hypocrisy, recognizing hypocrisy is not the good life. Okay, so let’s continue to explore Aristotle a little bit. He has more to say about the good Aristotle would describe the good as the function of a thing. So, goodness, which does become an inherit trait, is something that is seen in action. So a thing is good when it functions well according to its purpose. Now I understand that’s a bit philosophical, but think about it in terms of like. a steak knife, or, you know, if you’re chopping vegetables or preparing a meal and you’re using a kitchen knife, right? A knife is good when it cuts well, right? Meaning when it’s sharp. If you have a dull knife, and by the way, a dull knife is more dangerous than a sharp knife. Don’t be afraid of sharp knives. I mean, be careful. But in your kitchen, a dull knife is really more dangerous than a sharp knife. Because with a dull knife, you’re going to try to push too hard, and that’s when accidents happen. Okay. Set aside that practical wisdom there. But helping us understand Aristotle, think about what makes a knife good. A knife is good when it cuts well, when it’s easy to cut. Um an eye is good when it sees well, right? Your eyes go bad when you start squinting. That’s how I learned in my twenties. I needed glasses. I was bowling with some friends and I was trying to read the digital uh score up on the screen and I was squinting. A friend of mine said Do you realize you’re squinting? And I said, I’m not squinting. And he said, bro, you’re squinting. You need glasses, right? My eyes were no longer good because they didn’t see well So for Aristotle, a thing is good when it functions well according to its purpose. That now begs the question: what is this purpose, right? The purpose of a knife is to cut, the purpose of an eye is to see. What is the purpose for humanity And Aristotle defined that purpose for all humanity with a Greek word eudaimonia, which means happiness or human flourishing. And I think we can use the word happiness as long as we understand that for Aristotle, human happiness was not just seeking after pleasure, it wasn’t just the emotion associated with happiness. Aristotle in The Ethics writes, A happy person both lives well and acts well. For happiness is a certain kind of living well and good action. And for me, the Greek concept of happiness is very similar to the Hebrew concept of shalom. Now they’re not exactly synonymous terms, but what Aristotle called happiness, eudaimonia, is really close to what in the Old Testament We come across the word peace, which is the Hebrew word shalom. Shalom is translated peace, but it means Harmony, it means wholeness. I heard someone years ago that described Shalom as nothing missing, nothing broken Shalom is well-being. And again, if we connect Aristotle’s happiness With the biblical vision of peace, that is shalom, we begin to see how the practice of virtue Can really help us overcome hypocrisy because God made us body and soul for wholeness. so that the inside of us and the outside of us are fully aligned. Now hypocrisy, as we’ve seen, is the disconnect, the disharmony between our being and doing. But that’s not what God created us for. So Aristotle would say that the purpose of humanity is happiness. Christians would say the purpose of humanity is a connection to God, loving God, a relationship with God. being united with God so that we experience peace, that is shalom, that is wholeness. But let’s again go back to Aristotle because I keep using the word virtue, and we haven’t come up across that yet. We have seen that Aristotle teaches us that everything aims towards a good, and that good for humanity is whenever we are functioning according to our purpose. Our purpose is happiness. Now how do we achieve that happiness? How do we achieve this good life? In the ethics, Aristotle taught that the human good is the activity of the soul in accord with virtue So I’ve been using that word virtue, and now I’ve quoted Aristotle talking about virtue, but let’s define that so that we’re clear. Because again, you don’t hear much in modern times about virtue. The only phrase I hear that’s popular these days is virtue signaling, but I have no interest in talking about that. Ancient Greek virtue, which was picked up by Christians. There’s even references to virtue in the New Testament Virtue is human excellence or moral excellence, and it’s connected to what we do. Again, for Aristotle, The good that we aim for is an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue. So for Aristotle, virtue was not a feeling. It’s not a capacity. Virtue is about the shape of our character. So we do hear about character, right? Character matters. A person’s character is the the shape of their interior life. So I think Virtue and character, again, not synonymous terms, but very, very close. In Aristotle’s mind, virtue is a stable inner strength It is a moral consistency between being and doing that hypocrites lack Virtue is not based on a moral principle or list of rules. Virtue is not about one’s duty, what one ought to do. Virtue is about becoming a certain kind of person. So another very important part of Aristotle’s definition of virtue Is that he would say that virtue is a habit. Virtue is a good habit. Good habits are virtues. Bad habits are vices. So habit. Let’s talk about habit for just a little bit. Because I really think in the practice of recovery from hypocrisy, we need good habits. But for Aristotle, habits are both an action and a disposition of our heart Habits are within us, and habits are something that we do. So habits are a choice. We we choose to do certain things. But the thing about habits is that the more that you do them, the more they shape our desires Right? And this can be for good or for bad. So think about cigarette smoking. Right? We all know that smoking cigarettes is a bad habit The more you smoke cigarettes, the more you want to smoke cigarettes. Now, of course, there is a physical dependence upon nicotine that is formed, but there’s also an instinct of the heart that’s formed. That’s why you’ll see people who give up smoking still want to stick something in their mouth. Because they have an internal disposition. Towards the physical action of smoking. So bad habits produce bad desires, bad things that don’t lead to happiness or shalom, peace But Aristotle would say conversely, good habits produce good desires. If we do patient things, we become patient people, for example And so, what do we call these good habits? Aristotle called good habits virtues And I love to talk about the example of patience because it’s one I’ve experienced. I am not by nature a patient person I enjoy. I get great satisfaction from speed and efficiency. I like doing things fast. I like getting my work done. And I recognize that as a follower of Jesus, well, patience, that’s a Christian virtue. That’s a part of the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience. There it is So as a Christian, I believe that the Holy Spirit is producing patience within me. That’s true. But I also know that I work with the Holy Spirit when I’m doing patient things. when I force myself and put myself in patient situations like standing in long lines, I think about going to the DMV. I don’t know about your experience, um, but Our local DMV, and I will say they have um improved over the years, but years ago it was an awful system. You had to pull a number, one of those little paper numbers that would come out of a little machine. Now it’s all digital, but you used to have to pull this little number And you know, it’d be number seventy-eight. And then they had a LED screen above all the little desk workers at the DMV. And it would be like, number 56. And I’m like, oh no. I have 22 people in front of me. And there was a time I would just want to run away. But in putting myself in situations like that, going to the DMV and waiting my turn. In doing that patient thing and doing it over and over, that’s what Aristotle would say, I was becoming a patient person on the inside So Aristotle taught us these things, and early Christians They spent a lot of time working with Plato. It wasn’t until the 13th century. that Saint Thomas Aquinas comes upon the scene, and he discovered the great value of Aristotle in a number of regards, and particularly in the virtues. And Aristotle was called the philosopher by Aquinas. And Aquinas described virtue as an ordered disposition of the soul. For Aquinas, virtue is to the soul what health is to the body And just as a healthy body requires habits, now this is more me than Aquinas. But if we take Aquinas’ metaphor that virtue is to the soul, health is to the body, think about what we have to do to have a healthy body. A healthy Physical body requires habits, and you know what those habits are. They’re the habits of exercise and eating right. And we all struggle with that. I struggle with that. But the more you practice things like exercise and eating healthy the more your desires for those things change. Well, Aquinas and Aristotle would say this is how virtue Is formed in our hearts. By doing virtuous things, we become people of virtue. So, how does this help us recover from hypocrisy Well, we don’t recover from hypocrisy by trying harder to be less hypocritical. I mean, willpower and resolutions. I will not be hypocritical. Right, those will only get us so far. I think that we have to do something different, not just say something different. See, hypocrites are known for their grand speeches and what they say, but the problem of hypocrisy is they don’t practice what they preach. So we need more than declarations, we need habits, we need practices. So let’s go back to the practice of patience. When we do patient things, we become patient people. And the more we become patient on the inside, the easier it is to do patient things. And eventually we even begin to enjoy doing patient things Luis Marcos calls this the self-reinforcing cycle of virtue. And it’s this cycle that I think brings our harmony and being back into alignment, back into harmony And when our outer life and interior life are in harmony, when they’re working together, that’s when we are no longer hypocritical. That’s when we’re living a true life of character and integrity. All right. We’ll have more to say about hypocrisy. and the practice of virtue down the road, but that’s probably enough Aristotle for one podcast episode. I hope you enjoyed this. If you are looking to learn and grow about the virtue tradition, Luis Marcos’s book is good. Go back and listen to my podcast interview with him. And if you also want to learn more, feel free to reach out to me. You can find me at Derek Vreeland in all the places on social media All my social links are in the show notes. Reach out to me and I would be happy to share with you more resources. But let’s greet Aristotle with joy and gladness. Let’s learn from him as together we recover from hypocrisy. Well, that’s all that I have for you today. Thank you for joining me for this episode.
Derek Vreeland: Go in peace and be kind.
This transcript was generated with AI and may contain errors.