"Let Another Man Praise You"

There’s an old fable that tells the story of two geese who were about to start southward on their annual autumn migration, when they were entreated by a frog to take him with them.

The geese expressed their willingness to do so if a means of conveyance could be devised.

The frog produced a long stalk of grass, got the geese to take it by each end, while he clung to it by his mouth in the middle. In this manner the three were making their journey when they were noticed by some men.

The men loudly expressed their admiration for the device and wondered who had been clever enough to discover it.

Whereupon, the vainglorious frog opened his mouth to say, “It was I,” lost his hold, fell to the earth, and was dashed to pieces.

The moral of the story:

“Let another man praise you, and not your own mouth; A stranger, and not your own lips” (Proverbs 27:2; cf. Proverbs 25:27; 2 Corinthians 10:12,17-18).

—Mike Riley, Gospel Snippets