SYCOPHANCY

Sycophants use flattery to gain favour with a powerful person. They heap praise on the person and always agree with whatever he or she says. Their goal is to manipulate the one flattered to achieve their own ends.

Sycophancy has a long history. For example, opponents of Daniel used it against him in the Persian court (Dan 6). The Jewish Daniel had excelled as an administrator and the Persian officials were jealous. They could not accuse him of negligence, and so they adopted an indirect mode of attack. They praised King Darius to the heavens, and asked him to “issue an edict and enforce the decree that anyone who prays to any god or human being during the next thirty days, except to you, Your Majesty, shall be thrown into the lions’ den” (Dan 6:7). Daniel lost his position and potentially his life because he refused to engage in emperor worship. However, God delivered him and turned the tables on the sycophants.

We have another example of this sort of flattery in Acts 12:21-23. King Herod delivers a public address and the people flatter him, saying, “This is the voice of a god, not of a man”. It is fairly clear that this response is insincere and merely intended to keep the king in good humour. The king is foolish to accept such flattery, probably because he enjoyed such sycophantic behaviour. He paid for his folly with his life.

Sycophants can also use flattery to try to influence a judge. For example, in John 18 the Jewish leaders manifest all the marks of sycophants in their attempt to get Pilate to condemn Jesus. On the one hand, their statement, “If he were not a criminal we would not have handed him over to you” (John 18:30), implicitly condemns Jesus at the very outset, and sets themselves up as morally superior. On the other hand, it also signals their servile attitude towards Pilate, for it implies that they would not have presumed to approach him if it had been otherwise. Of course, their only intention is to have Jesus condemned, one way or the other.

We have another example of this in Acts 24. When the Apostle Paul was on trial before the Roman governor Felix, the lawyer for the prosecution prefaced his accusations against Paul with flattering words about Felix. He claimed, “We have enjoyed a long period of peace … and your foresight has brought about reforms” (Acts 24:2).

Felix had certainly done some good things, but in general he was a corrupt governor. Things were so bad under his rule that the Jews lodged an official complaint about him with the Emperor Nero! Paul, however, did not resort to flattery.

Sycophants still besiege rulers today, with often disastrous results.

For example, King Gyanendra of Nepal listened only to those who told him what he wanted to hear. In 2005, they advised him to seize all power and become a dictator. He did just that. He muzzled the press and allowed his security forces to arrest and torture people and abuse human rights. The Nepalis revolted. Mass protests forced him to reinstate parliament and eventually to abdicate in 2008. He lost his throne because he listened to sycophants.

Sycophants also flatter church leaders and pastors, and support them in everything they do, whether right or wrong. To give one example, foreign donors gave a pastor money to buy land for a church. Instead of registering the land in the name of three trustworthy church leaders, the pastor registered it in his own name.

Thus the land was legally his private property and on his death it would pass to his wife or son. When a church member recommended that the pastor should follow the usual registration procedure, sycophants shouted him down. They thought the pastor could do no wrong, and so encouraged his sin and greed. Meanwhile, the pastor’s behaviour destroyed the trust of others and stifled church growth.

Even ordinary people can be vulnerable to the flattering words of people like prostitutes (Prov 6:24; 7:21). We should remember that the book of Proverbs warns that flattery can lead to ruin (Prov 26:28) and early death (Job 32:21-22).

Flattery and lying go together and are sins against one’s neighbour and God (Pss 12:2, 3; 78:36). Thus the psalmist prays for God to silence “all flattering lips” (Ps 12:3). Sycopancy has no place in the kingdom of God.

Ramesh Khatry