When a compliment is given, it is genuine admiration and/or praise. It is meant to be a benefit to the hearer. When flattery is uttered, it is meant to benefit the speaker. The flatterer, issuing excessive compliments, is looking to ingratiate oneself and/or to gain an advantage over the recipient.

Christians, then, should be leery of preachers who seek to scratch itching ears. By itching ears, I’m alluding to those who like to hear about their own goodness and their potential to be great. The preachers who accommodate in this way are teaching pop-psychology, worldly values. They preach self-improvement and self-importance with sprinkles of scripture thrown in to make their message seem biblically supportive.

When these preachers do that, they do it under the pretext of encouragement. What they’re really doing, though, is feeding their need for greed and popularity. It usually works too, what with increasing attendance in their mega-churches and with their books flying off the shelf.

The apostle Paul gave this reminder as a means to distinguish a flattering, false preacher introducing heresies. In 1 Thessalonians 2: 5, he said that the apostles never used the mask of flattery, by which he equated that with coveting greed.

What also needs to be remembered and adhered to is Jesus’ message about appraising ourselves. He did not puff up the idea of self-importance. In fact, He inspired these words, through Paul, in Philippians 2: 3— “Consider others more important than yourself.”

You see, Jesus talked about dying to oneself; that to desire holding on to the prideful, self-importance of this life is to lose life altogether (Luke 17: 33). Flattery was out of the question. Jesus didn’t shy away from speaking hard truth. This He did regardless of whether it was popular or not. He spoke from love and it was for our benefit — that we might live through His death.

Like Jesus, Christians should do away with flattery.