Proverbs 29:5 · World English Bible
Proverbs 29:5 Meaning A Man Who Flatters His Neighbor Spreads
A man who flatters his neighbor spreads a net for his feet.
What does Proverbs 29:5 mean?
The ego's sweetest words are its most dangerous, for flattery is love counterfeited, and a mind that offers it is laying a trap it will walk into itself. To praise another for the wrong reason is to treat him as a special figure to be managed rather than a brother to be joined, and every such maneuver tangles the one who makes it.
From the Christian Psychology reading below.
Proverbs 29:5 through 1 lens
The same verse, read by one tradition.
Christian Psychology
CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY
Christian Psychology
The ego's sweetest words are its most dangerous, for flattery is love counterfeited, and a mind that offers it is laying a trap it will walk into itself. To praise another for the wrong reason is to treat him as a special figure to be managed rather than a brother to be joined, and every such maneuver tangles the one who makes it. What looks like kindness given away is really a snare set at the giver's own feet.
Honest joining needs no flattery, because it wants nothing back. A mind that stops trying to charm its neighbor discovers there was never a net to fear, only the freedom of meeting him without a hidden aim.
Net: the trap of specialness and hidden purpose, the tangle a mind sets by offering counterfeit love instead of true joining Feet: the mind's own direction and movement, the walk that is caught by the very snare it laid for another
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Christian Psychology lens
Live Proverbs 29:5 today
- Read back the last compliment you sent in a message and ask if you wanted something from it. If you did, send a plain true sentence to the same person today with nothing attached.
- Praise one person for something real and specific, and stop before you ask them for anything. Let the compliment be the whole message.
- In a meeting or a negotiation, when you feel the urge to butter someone up to get your way, say what you actually want instead. Direct is less work and leaves nothing to clean up.
Where have I been using kindness as a way of handling someone instead of meeting them?
The same truth in other traditions
Tao Te Ching 81
True words are not pretty and pretty words are not true. The one who charms is managing you, and the managing catches them too.
Zen
Meet the person in front of you with nothing in your hands. Any hidden aim becomes a rope you will trip on later.
Stoicism · Epictetus
If you flatter a person to get something, you have made yourself their servant and them your tool. Honesty is the cheaper road.
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