“A gossip goes around revealing a secret, but a trustworthy person keeps a confidence.” (Proverbs 11:13)
I just read an article by an “expert” in philosophy that says gossip is a good and helpful thing! It has value in the culture. This quack — I mean learned philosopher — said that gossip is entertaining and it releases people from the tedium of everyday life. He also postulates that gossip helps to define socially accepted behavior. Gossip makes the person who starts the story feel important. His ego is built up by pulling down someone else to his own level.
So…there you have it. Gossip is good for you! I know some people who have believed that all their life. In our culture, scandal is big business. Take a look at the listings in your TV Guide. We call it “reality TV.” We live in a day and age when everybody wants to know all the dirt they can about everybody else.
Don’t let the devil fool you. Gossip is still a sin. It is a sin against God for us to spread stories about others. It seems to me that the problem in the world today is not that people tell all they know. The problem is that people tell MORE than they know. Will Rogers said, “The only time people dislike gossip is when you gossip about them.”
In I Corinthians 13, the Bible says that love doesn’t rejoice in iniquity — therefore spreading and listening to gossip shouldn’t bring pleasure. The very thought of dragging someone else down just so we can feel better about ourselves should be repugnant to a Christian.
Dr. Herschel Hobbs said, “A gossiper usually knows where to take his garbage. Avoid making your ears someone else’s garbage can!”
Beginning right now, let’s covenant together to check every impulse we may have to spread a rumor. When someone tries to tell you the latest juicy gossip — tell them that you’ve decided to make James 4:11 your life verse — “Don’t criticize one another, brothers. He who criticizes a brother or judges his brother criticizes the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge.”
If we will start standing up to those who feed on telling the latest tales, they will stop telling all that stuff they really don’t know! Charles H. Spurgeon said, “I never like people to tell me secrets, for I cannot keep them.”
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