Good Hypocrisy

“We must, then, make a distinction between different kinds of hypocrisy. The Pharisees’ hypocrisy consisted in doing things in order to get human praise, and in concentrating on the small, finicky matters of obedience in order to avoid the big ones. But there is nothing wrong with the hypocrisy (so-called) that struggles to obey God’s commandments whether it wants to or not. In fact if we do not do that, then we are becoming Pharisees ourselves. We are setting a higher value on what others think (that sincerity is what counts) than on what God thinks (that obedience, or the desire and struggle for obedience, is what counts).” (Small Faith, Great God, N.T. Wright, p. 98).