Clowns, mimes, and actors all have something in common. Makeup. Their true faces are hidden behind colors, shadows, and fake facial hair. Sometimes, like mimes and some clowns, the makeup completely covers their face. Actors use makeup to enhance beauty and charm, or to portray themselves as younger or older than they really are. What you see isn’t their authentic, genuine self.
In Romans 12:9, Paul writes, “Let love be without hypocrisy“. (Romans 12:9a, CSB) The Greek word we translate as “hypocrisy” refers to the masks actors wear. In that day in Rome, the actors didn’t use makeup but literal masks as they performed on the stage. Actors aren’t the only ones who wear masks; we all do. They may not be literal masks or heavy makeup, but subtler masks that hide our true selves and our authentic faith in Christ. And the key is love. We can read verses 9-12 as behavior modification, but the intent is to live, work, and let the love of Jesus be poured into our hearts and poured outward back to Christ and to one another.
The verses in Romans 12:9-21 stand on their own. Each one is a brief reminder of a valuable Christian ethic. Each one also reminds us that our love can be hypocritical at times. That is the lens through which this study of Love Unmasked will consider the verses. But which love was Paul talking about? We’ve covered the different kinds of love expressed in Greek elsewhere. In verse 9, Paul uses the word agape. It’s the same self-sacrificial love Christ showed us. Jesus taught, “This is my command: Love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:12–13, CSB) This is the kind of love Paul instructs us to practice without hypocrisy.
Over the next weeks, we will be looking at the instructions Paul wrote to the Roman believers in verses 9-21. We will look at ways our love may be masked, inauthentic, or hypocritical, and listen to God’s pure word, which can destroy those masks if we let it.
This adventure begins with one simple requirement. We must be honest with ourselves and honest with God. We all have masks. But are those masks born of agape love or self-preservation; grace or social requirement; faith or faking it to make it? The truth is that we can’t hide from God. Adam and Eve used fig leaves to hide their nakedness from God after they sinned. God already knew what they were trying to hide. God knows what we’re trying to hide, too.
Love unmasked means recognizing and removing the hypocrisy we use to cover our sin, shame, fears, failures, insecurities, pride, envy, uncertainties, and other unhealthy feelings and motives so we can truly love God and love one another. It is easy to say but difficult to do.
- Love Unmasked – Removing the Mask - October 21, 2026
- Romans Applied – Real Unity - October 14, 2026
- Romans Applied – Purpose and Plans - October 7, 2026
