Augustine’s take on “Practicing what you preach”
Now these men do good to many by preaching what they themselves do not perform; but they would do good to very many more if they lived as they preach. For there are numbers who seek an excuse for their own evil lives in comparing the teaching with the conduct of their instructors, and who say in their hearts, or even go a little further, and say with their lips: Why do you not do yourself what you bid me do? And thus they cease to listen with submission to a man who does not listen to himself,and in despising the preacher they learn to despise the word that is preached. Wherefore the apostle, writing to Timothy, after telling him, “Let no man despise thy youth,” adds immediately the course by which he would avoid contempt: “but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.”
What a good word. Paul writes in Philippians 1:18, “Whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.” From this passage we gather that it is most important that Christ is preached correctly, whether by evil or redeemed men. God, by his Spirit, through his Word, is doing all of the work. In light of this truth, it is also true that God especially works through the mouths of believers who live out the gospel that they proclaim.
Why is it important to be an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity? Because people may associate their disgust of the preacher’s hypocrisy to the preacher’s message. Satan can use blatant hypocrisy in the lives of Christians to repulse people from the gospel. God desires that I seek to live out the gospel, as it will assist in providing fertile ground for the gospel to be proclaimed. No, God does not need me to be perfect (praise God), but he does call me to live in a way that testifies of the truth of the gospel.
Of this and much more, He is worthy.
