Proverbs 28:23 · World English Bible
Proverbs 28:23 Meaning One Who Rebukes a Man Will Afterward
One who rebukes a man will afterward find more favor than one who flatters with the tongue.
What does Proverbs 28:23 mean?
Flattery is fear's gentlest disguise, a way of keeping peace on the surface while withholding the truth that would set another free. The ego prefers it because it risks nothing, but it also gives nothing, leaving the other alone with the error that no one loved him enough to name.
From the Christian Psychology reading below.
Proverbs 28:23 through 1 lens
The same verse, read by one tradition.
Christian Psychology
CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY
Christian Psychology
Flattery is fear's gentlest disguise, a way of keeping peace on the surface while withholding the truth that would set another free. The ego prefers it because it risks nothing, but it also gives nothing, leaving the other alone with the error that no one loved him enough to name.
Honest correction, offered without attack, is love refusing to abandon a mind to its mistake. It looks past the flattering mask and speaks to the innocent self beneath, and though it stings for a moment, it is received at last as the truer gift. To overlook a brother's error is not to flatter it, but to see through it to the one who was never guilty at all.
Tongue: the mind's power to shape what it offers another, able either to soothe with a comforting falsehood or to speak the freeing truth in love
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Live Proverbs 28:23 today
- Think of the hard thing you have been softening in your head for someone. Write the honest version down once today, not to send it yet, but to see what it actually is under the padding.
- When you say the true thing to someone, lead with the fact that you are for them, then say it plainly and stop. Short and warm lands far better than long and hedged.
- When someone tells you something hard about yourself, resist the urge to explain, and just say thank you and sit with it for a day. The sting is not evidence that they were wrong.
Who have I been protecting with agreement when they needed the truth from me?
The same truth in other traditions
Stoicism · Epictetus
A friend who only agrees with you is a comfort and no help. The one who tells you the truth you did not want is doing the harder and kinder thing.
Buddhism · Abhaya Sutta
Speech is worth saying only when it is true, beneficial and welcome at the time it is said, and the teacher waits for the moment it can be received. The test is never cleverness but whether it helps.
Sufism · Rumi
The friend who shows you your own fault is a mirror, and a mirror that flatters is broken glass. Harsh truth from love is still love.
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