How Do I Praise Others but Avoid Flattery?

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - Sarah, a podcast listener, writes in

00:00:07.480 | with a really great question for you, Pastor John.

00:00:09.700 | Here it is.

00:00:10.540 | Pastor John, what's the difference

00:00:12.120 | between flattery and encouragement?

00:00:15.360 | We are called to encourage one another,

00:00:16.960 | but also not to puff one another up in pride.

00:00:20.440 | So how do I know which one is which?

00:00:23.180 | What would you say to Sarah?

00:00:24.760 | - You could not do better after the Bible

00:00:29.040 | than getting a copy of Sam Crabtree's

00:00:32.440 | extraordinary book called "Practicing Affirmation."

00:00:37.440 | And I love the subtitle,

00:00:39.200 | "God-Centered Praise for People Who Are Not God."

00:00:44.200 | Sam mustered a battery of biblical passages

00:00:50.600 | and gave such a compelling argument for praising people

00:00:56.400 | in a God-centered way that it significantly altered

00:01:00.400 | how I think about this.

00:01:01.760 | This is quite a remarkable book.

00:01:04.680 | I don't think there's another one like it.

00:01:07.040 | So I'm giving it, yes, a very high recommendation,

00:01:11.520 | just for the sake,

00:01:12.600 | if not all the other practical applications,

00:01:14.840 | of the biblical data that Sam has brought together

00:01:19.160 | in a way I've never seen anywhere else.

00:01:22.840 | So that's an advertisement with joy.

00:01:26.540 | There is such a thing as flattery.

00:01:30.240 | Not all getting is good.

00:01:33.780 | So we have the word greed, right?

00:01:35.820 | And not all giving is good.

00:01:38.660 | So we have the word bribe.

00:01:40.840 | Praise, which involves both getting and giving,

00:01:46.580 | may not be good.

00:01:48.740 | And so we have the word flattery.

00:01:51.780 | The Greek word for flattery, kolikia,

00:01:56.780 | occurs one time in the New Testament.

00:02:01.540 | Paul is defending his ministry to the Thessalonians,

00:02:05.920 | and he says, "We never came with flattering speech,

00:02:10.180 | "as you know, nor with a pretext for greed,

00:02:14.300 | "nor did we seek glory from men,

00:02:17.460 | "either from you or from others."

00:02:20.180 | And it's, I think, more than coincidental

00:02:22.860 | that flattery occurs in that sentence with the word greed.

00:02:27.860 | In other words, I want something from you.

00:02:30.300 | You're kind of getting at the heart of flattery

00:02:31.940 | when you think about that.

00:02:33.620 | The idea of flattery is present, without the word,

00:02:38.620 | in Jude 1:16, where Jude accuses certain men

00:02:43.140 | of admiring persons for the sake of their own advantage.

00:02:48.140 | That's the idea.

00:02:49.620 | You're admiring and you're saying nice things

00:02:51.500 | about somebody for the sake of your own advantage.

00:02:54.860 | Now, lots more is said about flattery in the Old Testament

00:02:58.660 | than in the New.

00:03:00.700 | The word flattery is built on the Hebrew word

00:03:03.940 | for be smooth or slippery.

00:03:07.500 | So a person who flatters is smoothing and caressing.

00:03:12.500 | The lips of an adulterous drip honey,

00:03:16.820 | and smoother than oil is her speech,

00:03:20.820 | or that's Proverbs 5, 3, here's 7, 21.

00:03:24.100 | With her many persuasion, she entices him,

00:03:28.340 | and with her flattering lips, she seduces him.

00:03:33.340 | The most general statement about flattery

00:03:36.460 | in its destructive effects is Proverbs 26, 28.

00:03:41.220 | A flattering mouth works ruin,

00:03:45.580 | or Proverbs 29, 5.

00:03:47.220 | A man who flatters his neighbor

00:03:49.340 | is spreading a net for his steps.

00:03:53.220 | So the key question becomes,

00:03:56.420 | how can we celebrate or praise good things

00:04:01.420 | about another person without spreading a net

00:04:05.340 | for their feet or working their ruin?

00:04:09.060 | I think the key is to keep in mind

00:04:13.520 | the essential difference between good praise

00:04:17.820 | and bad flattery.

00:04:18.940 | Flattery is bad because it's calculated.

00:04:23.020 | It's given with a view to obtaining some advantage,

00:04:28.020 | Jude 1, 16.

00:04:29.940 | Flattery may be true, it may be not true.

00:04:32.620 | Sometimes people think it has to do

00:04:34.300 | with whether it's true or not.

00:04:35.140 | That's not the issue.

00:04:36.380 | You may be saying something true about somebody

00:04:38.780 | and still be flattery.

00:04:40.200 | That's not the issue.

00:04:41.260 | The issue is whether it's calculated

00:04:44.340 | to achieve some purpose that is not rooted

00:04:49.100 | in the authentic, spontaneous delight

00:04:53.460 | that we take in the virtue we are praising.

00:04:56.820 | In other words, the key mark of genuine,

00:05:00.500 | non-flattering praise is that it's the overflow

00:05:05.180 | of authentic delight in what we're observing

00:05:09.020 | about the other person.

00:05:10.500 | It's the opposite of calculation.

00:05:12.900 | It's spontaneous.

00:05:14.220 | Lewis, C.S. Lewis, one of my favorite quotes.

00:05:18.020 | He says, "We delight to praise what we enjoy

00:05:23.020 | "because the praise not only expresses

00:05:27.000 | "but completes the enjoyment.

00:05:30.120 | "It is its appointed consummation."

00:05:33.360 | Yes, exactly right.

00:05:35.340 | But flattery does not flow from a sincere delight.

00:05:40.620 | In the thing being praised,

00:05:42.700 | it's all external and manipulative.

00:05:45.220 | It's elicited out of us by some other benefit

00:05:49.900 | that we're hoping to get through the flattery,

00:05:52.180 | not by the benefit that we just got

00:05:54.740 | from the person's kindness or virtue

00:05:57.660 | or beauty or accomplishment.

00:06:00.580 | So flattery is a form of hypocrisy.

00:06:04.700 | We try to give the impression that we are being moved

00:06:08.540 | by a spontaneous delight in something we admire,

00:06:11.940 | but we're not really being moved by spontaneous admiration.

00:06:16.500 | We're being calculating and we're desiring to use praise,

00:06:21.500 | to get something.

00:06:24.420 | I think the very phrase, "Use praise," makes me gag.

00:06:28.260 | Exactly.

00:06:29.100 | You're gonna go to God and use praise?

00:06:33.420 | Ick!

00:06:34.820 | It's a horrible way to think,

00:06:36.340 | and it's pretty prevalent today.

00:06:39.060 | So this raises the question of whether it's appropriate

00:06:43.020 | to "use praise" as a means of bringing about behaviors

00:06:48.020 | in children or employees or friends.

00:06:53.860 | Doesn't that imply some kind of calculated use of praise

00:06:59.580 | for ulterior motives?

00:07:01.860 | And that's a tough question.

00:07:03.660 | I think the answer goes something like this.

00:07:06.120 | If the praise can still be an expression

00:07:11.120 | of authentic, spontaneous delight in some good

00:07:16.620 | that we have observed, and if our goal is that the child

00:07:22.180 | or the friend do more of that behavior,

00:07:27.300 | not for the sake of praise,

00:07:30.380 | but because it's intrinsically beautiful and God-honoring,

00:07:35.440 | then it's legitimate to hope that our praise

00:07:38.620 | will produce more good behavior.

00:07:42.140 | But in general, I think it's dangerous

00:07:46.020 | to think of our praise of others,

00:07:47.960 | including our children, in utilitarian terms.

00:07:51.960 | Children are gonna catch on to this eventually.

00:07:54.620 | They're gonna say, "I don't think Daddy really enjoyed

00:07:57.340 | what I just did.

00:07:58.180 | He's just trying to use it to get me to do something."

00:08:00.860 | Namely, thinking that our praise will bring about behaviors

00:08:05.420 | that we want, that kids are gonna catch on to that.

00:08:08.900 | It's not gonna be authentic.

00:08:10.260 | Our parents are gonna start,

00:08:11.820 | are gonna think like psychologically trained manipulators.

00:08:16.820 | Far better to be the kind of person, the kind of parent,

00:08:21.900 | who sees God-given virtue or God-given achievements

00:08:26.900 | and being so authentically stirred with admiration and joy

00:08:34.480 | that we spill over with praise.

00:08:37.920 | And of course, it's gonna have wonderful effects

00:08:41.820 | on our relationships and on the future behaviors

00:08:44.220 | of our kids and others.

00:08:45.540 | But if we start making the utilitarian dimension

00:08:50.540 | of praise prominent, which it is being made prominent today,

00:08:55.640 | if we start making it prominent,

00:08:57.780 | it will cease to be authentic.

00:09:00.440 | And in the long run, I think it will backfire.

00:09:03.520 | Just one last help.

00:09:05.220 | I have friends, including Sam Crabtree,

00:09:10.020 | who have taught me that a good way

00:09:13.580 | to conceive of our praising other people

00:09:17.580 | is to think of it as drawing attention,

00:09:21.260 | spontaneously enjoying and thus drawing attention

00:09:24.400 | to "evidences of God's grace."

00:09:28.420 | That little phrase is pretty common in some circles,

00:09:30.940 | and I think it's a good one.

00:09:32.940 | If we believe that in sinful human beings,

00:09:37.940 | all virtue is ultimately from God, which it is,

00:09:43.140 | then all praising of true virtue or true accomplishments

00:09:48.140 | or any beautiful traits that we see

00:09:50.420 | will be conceived of as honoring God, not just man.

00:09:54.780 | So it is a good thing in a family, in a church,

00:09:58.820 | among friends, to habitually call attention

00:10:03.100 | to "evidences of grace" in each other's lives,

00:10:07.700 | to say to our children in a dozen ways,

00:10:10.140 | don't have to be mechanical about this, in a dozen ways,

00:10:13.620 | "I love what God is doing in your life.

00:10:16.020 | That was so good of the way you shared your toys with Jimmy."

00:10:20.140 | Kids aren't gonna think, "Oh, Daddy's preaching."

00:10:23.620 | Not if it's authentic, not if it's authentic,

00:10:26.580 | and you really feel joy in what your child just did,

00:10:30.700 | and joy in the grace of God.

00:10:33.060 | But my earnest plea, last thing I'll say,

00:10:35.740 | my earnest plea is try to avoid

00:10:39.180 | utilitarian, calculated approaches

00:10:43.060 | which turn spontaneity into manipulation.

00:10:46.200 | That's the soil of flattery.

00:10:48.540 | - Yeah, and that is an eye-opening distinction

00:10:51.660 | with a ton of implications for all of our relationships.

00:10:54.620 | Thank you, Pastor John.

00:10:55.980 | And Sam Crabtree's extraordinary book, again,

00:10:58.660 | is called "Practicing Affirmation,

00:11:00.500 | "God-Centered Praise of Those Who Are Not God."

00:11:03.660 | And Sam is not just a writer on this,

00:11:05.500 | he models God-Centered Praise

00:11:07.260 | in a very sweet way in his own life.

00:11:10.360 | Thank you, Pastor John.

00:11:11.380 | Well, how should we think of generational sins?

00:11:15.220 | Does God punish us for the sins of our ancestors?

00:11:18.820 | And what about curses and hexes?

00:11:21.340 | Can jinxes and spells plague our lives too?

00:11:23.960 | John Piper will return to explain all of this tomorrow.

00:11:27.660 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:11:28.540 | Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast.

00:11:31.100 | (upbeat music)

00:11:33.680 | (upbeat music)

00:11:36.260 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

How Do I Praise Others but Avoid Flattery?

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