Thread by @thisisfoster

1/ There is an excellent phrase contained in a personal letter John Calvin wrote to his good friend Guillaume Farel. Calvin had just a received letter from Geneva asking him return to the pastorate after having been expelled just a few years earlier.

This letter includes...

2/ ...the following sentences:

"O marvelous spectacle, the stone which the builders rejected is become the headstone of the corner. Come, then, my venerable father in Christ. The Lord has given you to us. All sigh for thee."

When Calvin wrote Farel he described the letter as...

3/ ...being “full of nauseating flattery.” That is a helpful phrase.

It is difficult for me to believe that the majority of Christians would find such a letter nauseating. Some might raise an eyebrow up in concern but few would be nauseated by flattery.

4/ The 1828 version of Webster’s Dictionary defines nauseate, “as to become squeamish; to feel nausea; to turn away with disgust.”

Flattery should sicken us. However, we have been taught all our lives to cherish and employ the use of flattery in all of our communications.

5/ Consider just a few Bible verses on the wickedness of flattery:

"For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people." Rom 16:1

6/ "You know we never used flattery, nor did we put on a mask to cover up greed—God is our witness." 1 Thes 2:5

"Whoever flatters his neighbor is spreading a net for his feet." Pr 29:5

"These men...boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage." Jude 1:16

7/ "He who rebukes a man will in the end gain more favor than he who has a flattering tongue." Pr 28:23

Flattery is always used by ungodly men to mask their true intentions.

These men might appear to be kind but they are setting a snare by feeding your pride.

8/ Antisthenes wisely said, "It is better to fall among crows than flatterers; for those devour only the dead--these the living." Flatterers are predators hiding behind a nice smile and kind words.

Plutarch wrote much on the topic. Consider a few of his thoughts...

9/ “Flatterer is mutable, inconstant, not his own man but ever-changing to be the man he thinks will appeal to his victim.”

“A flatterer praises indiscriminately and copies rather his object's vices rather than virtues.”

“A flatterer is always seeking to please.”

10/ “Give a flatterer absurd advice & speak impertinently of his undertaking and he will agree with your disagreeable counsel.”

“Beware of one who is too eager to seem a friend & who works too hard at gaining your trust.”

“The flatterer labors to please rather than profit you.”

11/ “A flatterer will seek to separate you from your true friends by speaking ill of them.”

Steer as far away from flatterers as possible.

Brothers, we must ask God for three things.
First, that he would trained our hearts to be nauseated by the sugary-venom that is flattery.

12/ Second, that he would remove flattery from our lips. The straight-forward loving rebuke of a friend, though they may seem harsh at the time, will accomplish more than the sweet words of a flatterer.

13/ Lastly, that he would bless us with a humble self-assessment of ourselves. For Plutarch was right:

“The surest prophylactic against the evils of the flatterer is a just opinion of oneself that will reject, as untruthful, the flatterer's insinuations.”