Flattery Is a Form of Deception
To flatter friends is to lay a trap for their feet.
Prov. 29:5 NLT
In the end, people appreciate honest criticism far more than flattery.
Prov. 28:23 NLT
Flattery is encouragement without substance: praise without merit. Flattery misleads—the praised abilities are not as good as advertised. Flattery is the giving of confidence in a talent or ability that the other person does not possess. Flattery glosses over the faults, flaws, and weaknesses of others for the purpose of gaining and receiving approval.
Encouragement is different from flattery in that our faults are recognized, but we are urged to overcome their difficulties. The wise person according to the Book of Proverbs sees through flattery and does not resort to its deception.
Too often the flatterer finds more favor than the reprover. ‘Few people have the wisdom to like reproofs that would do them good, better than praises that do them hurt.’ And yet a candid man, notwithstanding the momentary struggle of wounded pride, will afterwards appreciate the purity of the motive, and the value of the discovery. ‘He that cries out against his surgeon for hurting him, when he is searching his wound, will yet pay him well, and thank him too, when he has cured it.’
Unbelief, however, palsies (def. weakens) Christian rebuke. Actual displeasure, or the chilling of friendship, is intolerable. But Paul’s public rebuke of his brother apostle produced no disruption between them. Many years afterward Peter memorialized his ” beloved brother Paul” with most affectionate regard. The Apostle’s painful rebuke of his Corinthian converts eventually increased his favor with them, as the friend of their best interests. The flatterer is viewed with disgust; the reprover—afterwards at least—with acceptance. A less favorable result may often be traced to an unseasonable time, a harsh manner, a neglect of prayer for needful wisdom, or a want of due ‘consideration’ of our own liability to fall. Let us study the spirit of our gracious Master, whose gentleness ever poured balm into the wound, which his faithful love had opened. Such a spirit is more like the support of a friend, than the chastening of a rod.
Charles Bridges, A Commentary on Proverbs (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1846), 549.