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Does it Really Pay to Break the Rules

Hypocrisy Honesty Rationalize

Source: "Harvard professor fired for being dishonest in study about dishonesty" by Mik Olson, NotTheBee.com, published 5/28/25

Link to Source: Click here to view source

Contributed By: Illustration Exchange | Date Posted: 2025-05-29

Scripture: Matthew 7:5 ; Luke 12:2

Author: Illustration Exchange
4

ILLUSTRATION

She was paid $1 Million per year to research and teach on the topics of "honesty and ethical behavior," but no longer. As of May 28, 2025, Harvard University researcher Francesca Gino has lost her tenure.

Why? Mik Olson of Not the Bee reports:

"The honesty professor has been officially canned for dishonesty while conducting studies on [wait for it!] ... dishonesty. ... So now we have an ethics expert embroiled in a legal battle over whether she cooked the academic books — you really can't make this stuff up. ... Anyways, word on the street is that Harvard is looking for a new ethics professor! Only requirement: Be Ethical."

Publisher Michael Shermer of Skeptic Magazine tweeted it this way:

Harvard behavioral scientist Francesca Gino, who was paid $1 million a year to study honesty and ethical behavior, was accused of manipulating observations to better support her conclusions. Now lost tenure. Do they still teach irony at Harvard?

The accusations ranged from data falsification to plagiarized passages in some of her high-profile publications.

Ironically (errr, unironically), Professor Gino actually produced a video short several years ago entitled "Rebel Talent: Why It Pays to Break the Rules at Work and in Life." 

Yep, you really CAN'T make this stuff up!

APPLICATION

With instructional videos on the benefits of breaking the rules, is it any wonder this "ethics" and "honesy" professor would find herself on the wrong side of, well, ethics and hoesty?

Hypocrisy is the sworn enemy of the frutiful Christian life. We love to put our best face forward, virtue signalling our ethical and honest Christian walk and lifestyle, all while self-justifying our bending of the rules, a little here, a little there, until finally, our sins are found out. "Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known" (Luke 12:2, ESV).

In the end, it's hard to live a lie. Honesty is ALWAYS the best policy.

"You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye" (Matthew 7:5, ESV).

"You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men’" (Matthew 15:7-9, ESV).

"Having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people" (2 Timothy 3:5, ESV).
 

 

If Christianity Is True, Why Do Christians Behave So Badly?

Apologetics Hypocrisy Truth

Source: "If Christianity is true, why do Christians behave so badly?" by Joel Furches for the JARRETSVILLE CHRISTIANITY EXAMINER, posted Examiner.com, 10/31/14

Link to Source: Click here to view source

Contributed By: Illustration Exchange | Date Posted: 2017-05-02

Scripture: John 14:6

Author: Joel Furches
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ILLUSTRATION

Apologist and blogger Joel Furches, in an article entitled "If Christianity Is True, Why Do Christians Behave So Badly?" seeks to correct the illogic of such questions. At the root, he suggests, is the anti-Christian bias which tries to inexorably tie the behavior of the Christian with the validity of the faith.

"If it could be shown, then, that Christian behavior is overwhelmingly reprehensible, and that Christians get away with acting this way while claiming to be followers of God, it is only reasonable that people see this as evidence against the truth of Christianity, and of the Christian God."

He goes on to cite the anti-Christians' favorite examples used to disprove the "truth" of the Christian faith: the Crusades, the Inquisition, the cruelty of John Calvin, and the bigotry of Martin Luther.

The truth of Christianity does not stand or fall on who believes it, their motivations for believing it, or their personal behaviors. Either Christianity is true or it isn’t. That certain people embrace Christianity and then behave in a despicable manor does not somehow prove that Christianity is untrue. This same person doubtlessly holds a number of other beliefs that are in fact true. They probably believe that the earth is round, that exercise is good for the body, that rain comes from clouds, and that when they strike another person, it will hurt that person. These things do not somehow become untrue if the person believing them behaves badly.

APPLICATION

"Christianity," he concludes, "stands or falls on its own merits. If Christianity is true, those who believe it will be held accountable for how they have represented those beliefs to others. If it is untrue, their behaviors have not made it untrue."

"Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the TRUTH, and the life ..." (John 14:6).

How To Fake Your Own Death

Hypocrisy Dead (to sin) Spiritual Health

Source: “So you think you can fake your own death?” by Elizabeth Greenwood, Linked In, Sep 10, 2016

Link to Source: Click here to view source

Contributed By: Illustration Exchange | Date Posted: 2017-02-18

Scripture: Colossians 3:5

Author: Illustration Exchange
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ILLUSTRATION

Elizabeth Greenwood writes: 

Faking your death—both as a concept and as an act people attempt with surprising frequency — first occurred to me over dinner with a friend at a cheap Vietnamese restaurant. I had just enrolled in a graduate program, and had taken out a brand new batch of student loans to heap upon a hefty debt from college.

As I bitched about the financial mess I’d gotten myself into, and how I feared I might never get out of it, I fantasized about finding a sun-bleached country with a rickety government and no extradition policy and just slipping through the cracks, disappearing without a trace.

“Or you could fake your own death,” my friend offered.

That conversation sent me on a years-long quest tracking down people who have faked their own deaths and interviewing experts in the art of disappearance. Along the way, I picked up a few Dos and Don’ts. 

Don’t subscribe to conventional wisdom: The biggest challenge of faking your death is that teensy problem of your body. So fake a drowning, right? Wrong ... In most drownings, the body is recovered.  According to Rambam, hiking is the way to go. “People disappear hiking all the time, legitimately. That’s a great way to disappear.”  

Don’t Google yourself: Bad enough he tried it by water, but the temptation was too much for Patrick McDermott, Australian singer Olivia Newton-John’s longtime boyfriend, who faked his death on a fishing trip in 2005 shortly after the couple had broken up. Having recently filed for bankruptcy, he chartered a boat and allegedly fell overboard at night. A group of private investigators hired by Dateline NBC located McDermott when they noticed a centralized cluster of IP addresses originating near Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, all clicking onto a site dedicated to tracing his whereabouts.

Don’t assume a fake identity: There’s no law on the books called “faking your own death.” If you don’t file a police report or death certificate, making it look like you are deceased violates no law except perhaps that of good taste. Promoting the idea that you have met an untimely end when in fact you are lazing beachside, paying for your daiquiris with a suitcase full of cash, is perfectly legal.

Do ask yourself: Can you bear to hold your own death certificate in your hands?: ...Most successful death fraud is carried out with high quality authentic documents ... But actually handling a piece of paper declaring me dead and a police report detailing my fatal car accident proved to be a more somber affair.

APPLICATION

Do you have problems you would like to escape? Rather than fake your own death, the Bible suggest that you go ahead and die ... to self! The call of Christian discipleship came when Jesus said, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me" (Matthew 16:24). 

Have you died in Christ, or are you putting on an elaborate ruse? Consider the following diagnostic questions:

  1. Rather than facing your core spiritual issues, do you refuse to “go there”?
  2. Do you attend church for what you can get rather than what you can give?
  3. Do you fellowship with believers but avoid being vulnerable or transparent with them?
  4. Do you boast more about what you have done for Christ, than what Christ has done for you? 
  5. Are you one person at church but a different person when no one is watching?
  6. Do you insist that things have to be done your way or it's the highway?  

The conventional wisdom is that church is a place where we pretend everything is great in our life. In order to appear to be spiritual, we hide our problems and struggles from other believers. Rather than, "confess our faults to one another," as James exhorted us to do, we hide behind masks, afraid of what others would think of us if they knew the truth. Instead of dying to pride and pretense, we fake our death!

“Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry” (Colossians 3:5). 

The Two Lives Of Mr. Black

Hypocrisy Integrity Testimony

Contributed By: Illustration Exchange | Date Posted: 2017-01-07

Scripture: James 4:8

Author: Illustration Exchange
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Stingy Witness

Witness Hypocrisy Cheapskate

Contributed By: Illustration Exchange | Date Posted: 2016-04-01

Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 1:5 ; 1 Timothy 5:8

Author: Illustration Exchange
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Don't Be Satisfied With A Better Mug Shot

Hypocrisy Repentance Pride

Contributed By: Illustration Exchange | Date Posted: 2016-03-04

Scripture: Matthew 6:5 ; Matthew 23:27

Author: Illustration Exchange
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Where Does God's Law Belong?

Word of God New Birth Hypocrisy

Contributed By: Illustration Exchange | Date Posted: 2016-01-29

Scripture: Psalms 119:11 ; 2 Corinthians 3:3

Author: Illustration Exchange
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How NOT To Love Jesus

Obedience Love for God Hypocrisy

Contributed By: Illustration Exchange | Date Posted: 2015-11-04

Scripture: John 14:15 ; Romans 2:13

Author: Selfie Dad, home produced video
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Clean Your Windows

Judging Self-examination Hypocrisy

Contributed By: Illustration Exchange | Date Posted: 2015-06-30

Scripture: Matthew 7:5

Author: Unknown
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Tsarnaev's Mother Says US Will Pay for Her Son's Punishment

Anger Blame Hypocrisy

Contributed By: Illustration Exchange | Date Posted: 2015-04-13

Scripture: Proverbs 15:14 ; Matthew 7:3

Author: Illustration Exchange
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