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How Can I Encourage Without Flattering? · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Welcome back to the podcast. Recently we've been talking about how we serve and
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  praise God. A week ago we looked at what it means to serve God.
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  One of the most important questions a Christian can ask, Pastor John said,
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  and that was back in Ebja nineteen fifty six, And that led to
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  the question, what do we offer God as we serve him? Does he
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  need us? And the answer to that question was no, he does not
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  need us. We meet no need in him. So then what do we
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  offer him as we serve him? It's another essential question to resolve and that
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  was last time in Apja nineteen fifty seven. Today we look at praise,
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  but a different kind of praise than what we've been talking about on the podcast
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  recently. Today we're talking about praise in the context of celebrating one another.
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  How do we celebrate one another authentically and do so without flattery which is a
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  sin? Today's questions from Sarah, a listener who writes us this, Pastor
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  John, Hello, can you explain to me the difference between flattery and encouragement?
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  We are called to encourage one another, but also to not puff one
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  another up in pride. How can I know which one is which there is
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  such a thing as flattery. Not all getting is good, so we have
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  the word greed, right, and not all giving is good, so we
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  have the word bribe. Praise, which involves both getting and giving may not
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  be good, and so we have the word flattery. The Greek word for
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  flattery cola kaya, occurs one time in the New Testament. Paul is defending
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  his ministry to the Thessalonians, and he says, we never came with flattering
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  speech, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed, nor did
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  we seek glory from men, either from you or from others. And it's
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  I think more than coincidental that flattery occurs in that sentence with the word greed
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  and other wors. I wants something from you, and you're kind of getting
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  at the heart of flattery when you think about that. The idea of flattery
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  is present without the word in Jude one sixteen, where Jude accuses certain men
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  of admiring persons for the sake of their own advantage. That's the idea you're
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  admiring and you're saying nice things about somebody for the sake of your own advantage.
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  Now lots more is said about flattery in the Old Testament than in the
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  New. The word flattery is built on the Hebrew word for be smoothed or
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  slippery. So a person who flatters is smoothing and caressing the lips of an
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  adulterous drip honey and smoother than oil is her speech, or that's Proverbs five
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  three or seven twenty one. With her many persuasions, she entices him,
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  and with her flattering lips she seduces him. The most general statement about flattery
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  in its destructive effects is Proverbs twenty six twenty eight. A flattering mouth works
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  ruin or Proverbs twenty nine to five. A man who flatters his neighbor is
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  spreading a net for his steps. So the key question becomes, how can
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  we celebrate or praise good things about another person without spreading a net for their
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  feet or working their ruin. I think the key is to keep in mind
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  the essential difference between good praise and bad flattery. Flattery is bad because it's
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  calculated. It's given with a view to obtaining some advantage. June one,
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  sixteen. Flattery may be true, it maybe not true. Sometimes people think
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  it has to do whether it's true or not that's not the issue. It
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  You may be saying something true about somebody and still be flattery. That's not
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  the issue. The issue is whether it's calculated to achieve some purpose that is
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  not rooted in the authentic, spontaneous delight that we take in the virtue we
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  are praising. In other words, the key mark of genuine, non flattering
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  praise is that it's the overflow of authentic delight in what we're observing about the
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  other person. It's the opposite of calculation. It's spontaneous. Lewis s Lewis
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  one of my favorite quotes. He says, we delight to praise what we
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  enjoy because the praise not only expresses, but completes the enjoyment it is.
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  It's a pointed consummation. Yes, exactly right. But flattery does not flow
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  from a sincere delight in the thing being praised. It's all external and manipulatives.
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  It's elicited out of us by some other benefit that we're hoping to get
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  through the flattery, not by the benefit that we just got from the person's
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  kindness or virtue or beauty or accomplishment. So flattery is a form of hypocrisy.
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  We try to give the impression that we are being moved by a spontaneous
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  delight in something we admire. But we're not really being moved by spontaneous admiration.
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  We're being calculating, and we're desiring to use praise to get something.
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  I think the very phrase use praise makes me gag, like you're gonna go
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  to God and use praise ick you know. It's just it's a horrible way
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  to think, and it's pretty prevalent today. So this raises the question of
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  whether it's appropriate to quote use praise as a means of bringing about behaviors in
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  children or employees or friends. Doesn't that imply some kind of calculated use of
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  praise for ulterior motives, And that's a tough question. I think the answer
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  goes something like this. If the praise can still be an expression of authentic,
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  spontaneous delight in some good that we have observed, and if our goal
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  is that the child or the friend do more of that behavior not for the
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  sake of praise, but because it's intrinsically beautiful and God honoring, then it's
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  legitimate to hope that our praise will produce more good behavior. But in general,
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  I think it's dangerous to think of our praise of others, including our
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  children, in utilitarian terms. Children are going to catch on to this.
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  Eventually, they're going to say, I don't think dad, he really enjoyed
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  what I just did. He's just trying to use it to get me to
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  do something, namely, thinking that our praise will bring about behaviors that we
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  want. That kids are gonna are going to catch on to that. It's
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  not going to be authentic. Our parents are going to start are going to
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  think like like psychologically trained manipulators. Far better to be the kind of person,
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  the kind of parent who sees God given virtue or God given achievements and
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  being so authentically stirred with admiration and joy that we spill over with praise.
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  And of course, of course it's going to have wonderful effects on our relationships
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  and on the future behaviors of our kids and others. But if we start
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  making the utilitarian dimension of praise prominent, it is being made prominent today.
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  If we start making it prominent, it will cease to be authentic, and
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  in the long run, I think it will backfire. Just one last help.
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  I have friends who have taught me that a good way to conceive of
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  our praising other people is to think of it as drawing attention spontaneously enjoying and
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  thus drawing attention to quote evidences of God's grace. That little phrase is pretty
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  common in some circles, and I think it's a good one if we If
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  we believe that in sinful human beings, all virtue is ultimately from God,
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  which it is, then all praising of true virtue, or true accomplishments,
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  or any beautiful traits that we see will be conceived of as honoring God,
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  not just man. So it is a good thing in a family, in
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  a church, among friends to habitually call attention to evidences of grace in each
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  other's lives, to say to our children in a dozen ways, don't have
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  to be mechanical about this, In a dozen ways, I love what God
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  is doing in your life. That was so good of the way you shared
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  your toys with Jimmy kids aren't gonna think, oh, daddy's preaching. Not
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  if it's authentic. Note if it's authentic and you really feel joy in what
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  your child just did and joy in the grace of God. But my earnest
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  plea. Last thing I'll say, my earnest plea is try to avoid utilitarian,
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  calculated approaches which turn spontaneity into manipulation. That's the soil of flattery.
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  A wonderful definition of flattery and how to avoid it in our hearts, and
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  a great little primer on pointing out evidences of grace in each other's lives.
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  Thank you, Pastor John, and thanks for joining us today. If you
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  want to ask Pastor John, email your question to us that ask Pastor John
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  at Desiring God dot org. Well, the Bible says Christians have been saved,
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  and it says we will be saved, and it says we are being
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  saved right now. We are being saved. We're going to look at that
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  last one, the present tense being saved next time. How are we being
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  saved right now? That's the question. I'm your host, Tony Rankie.
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  We'll find out on Monday. We'll see you then,