Self promotion: the American disease

Honor vs. flattery

Flattery is the counterfeit of honor. Honor tells the truth about what God has done in you. Flattery tells you what you want to hear so it can use you. “A man who flatters his neighbor spreads a net for his feet” (Proverbs 29:5). “A flattering mouth works ruin” (Proverbs 26:28). Even praise is a furnace that tests what is in you (Proverbs 27:21).

The Hebrew word for “flatters” in Proverbs 29:5 is ḥālaq. Strong’s lists two senses under that spelling: to divide, share, or apportion, and to be smooth, slippery, to flatter. Lexicons treat these as two roots spelled alike. Flattery offers you a smooth portion. God offers you a double portion. You cannot stand on both.

Before anyone on earth said a word, God had already told Elijah, “Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel Meholah you shall anoint as prophet in your place” (1 Kings 19:16). The promotion was decided in heaven first. Elisha’s name means “God is salvation.” Abel Meholah means “meadow of dancing.” Before the dancing, there was plowing.

Test 1: hidden promotion

He found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen before him, and he was with the twelfth. Then Elijah passed by him and threw his mantle on him.

Twelve yoke means twenty-four oxen, a prosperous farm. Elisha was with the twelfth, working the last team. He was not standing over the work. He was in it. Elijah threw the mantle without a speech, a ceremony, or a crowd. Šālaḵ means to fling. He flung it and kept walking. When Elisha ran after him, Elijah offered no pep talk: “Go back again, for what have I done to you?” (1 Kings 19:20). Elisha had to decide whether the mantle was enough.

He slaughtered a yoke of oxen, cooked the meat with the oxen’s own equipment, fed the people, and “followed Elijah, and became his servant” (1 Kings 19:21). He burned his way back. For years after, he was known as the man “who poured water on the hands of Elijah” (2 Kings 3:11). His résumé was servanthood.

“Mantle,” ʾadderet, is also a word for glory. God draped glory on a plowman. “Plowing,” ḥāraš, sits next to a sense meaning to be silent, to keep quiet. Promotion found Elisha in the silent furrow. God finds you working. “Least” in Luke 16:10, elachistos, means least in the estimation of men. God watches what people overlook. God calls without explaining. And God tests whether you need applause. Elijah walked away. Elisha ran after him.

Test 2: temporary promotion

On the day Elijah would be taken, he said three times, “Stay here.” Each time Elisha answered, “As the Lord lives, and as your soul lives, I will not leave you!” (2 Kings 2:2, 4, 6).

Gilgal, “a wheel, rolling,” recalls where God rolled away the reproach of Egypt (Joshua 5:9): a fresh start. Bethel, “house of God,” is where Jacob saw the ladder: past encounters. Jericho was the first city taken in the land: past victories. Then the Jordan: the place of crossing over. Every stop was a respectable place to settle. Good things can keep you from God’s best things. Sometimes the test comes through your spiritual leader.

The sons of the prophets told Elisha what he already knew. Both times he said, “Yes, I know; keep silent!” (2 Kings 2:3, 5). Ḥāšâ means to be silent, quiet, still. He silenced the crowd’s commentary so he could keep hearing God.

And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.

Test 3: staying focused in the fire

Read 2 Kings 2:11 carefully. A chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them, and Elijah went up by a whirlwind. The chariot did not carry him. It came between them. The most spectacular thing in the scene was the thing that could have pulled Elisha’s eyes away. Then the text says, “And Elisha saw it” (2 Kings 2:12). Spectators watch from a distance. Fifty sons of the prophets stood facing them at a distance (2 Kings 2:7). Successors stay close.

Hebrews 12:2 says “looking unto Jesus.” Aphoraō means to turn the eyes away from other things and fix them on one thing. Focus by subtraction. Elisha tore his own clothes. Grief is real, but he took off the old identity before he picked up the new mantle.

Test 4: the mantle falls from heaven

Where is the Lord God of Elijah? And when he also had struck the water, it was divided this way and that; and Elisha crossed over.

Elijah could not give a double portion. Only God imparts His Spirit. Pî šnayim, “a mouth of two,” is the same phrase as the firstborn’s inheritance (Deuteronomy 21:17). Elisha asked to be the spiritual heir, not the celebrity. His question was not “Where is Elijah?” It was “Where is the Lord God of Elijah?” The power was never in the cloth. It was in the God of the cloth.

Then the prophets said, “The spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha,” and they bowed (2 Kings 2:15). Public recognition followed private obedience. He never campaigned for it. The anointing comes from God (Acts 10:38), it abides (1 John 2:27), and it is for ministry, not image. Jesus told His disciples to tarry until they were endued with power from on high (Luke 24:49).

And when no one claps for a hidden kindness: “He who has pity on the poor lends to the Lord, and He will pay back what he has given” (Proverbs 19:17). Heaven writes it down. God has never defaulted.

Carry the weight, not the applause

Can you handle promotion without flattery? Are you content with secret obedience before public affirmation? Do you pursue calling more than applause? Will you pass the invisible tests of the Spirit?

Elisha was found plowing. He refused to stop at Gilgal, Bethel, or Jericho. He kept his eyes on the assignment through the fire. And he picked up a mantle that fell from heaven and tested it in faith.

Obviously, I’m not trying to win the approval of people, but of God. If pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ’s servant.

Ankit Rambabu Pinnadari · Acts of Faith Ministries

Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version and the New Living Translation, as noted.