One thing we Christians love to do is gossip. I suppose that due to the Papparazi gossip machine and gossip-heavy magazines like “People” it is only natural Christians fall into this social trend of listening to and spreading rumors about other people. It’s natural, but then, so is all sin.
Ironically, in churches today, we are more prone to condemn “homosexuals,” “abortionists,” and “democrats” than those who gossip. But did you know that the Bible speaks out against the sins of the tongue more than any other sin? I have a sneaking suspicion that the Bible condemns gossip more than all the other sins combined. Someone should do a study on that.
So, if you like to point the finger at others, and send e-mails about how Mr. Leader is moving into heresy (i.e., anything you don’t believe), and make phone calls to put your neighbor on the “prayer chain” (Gasp, Can you believe she got pregnant out of wedlock?!), what you are really doing is committing the number one sin of Scripture.
You know what I say to all of this? Watch the following video to find out.
This poor lady is dealing with a different issue than gossip, but the advice she received can be applied to those of us who gossip: STOP IT.
I’m not much of a Bob Newhart fan, but that clip is hilarious. $5 for 5 minutes. huh? Whatever it is we have problems with, such as gossip, overeating or you-name-it, we’d much rather talk about what we imagine other people’s sins to be. My favorite is the gossip that disguised as “prayer requests”, such as one I heard “We need to pray for sister X. She’s going through some deep waters now. Someone saw her husband out with another woman.” (I wanted to ask “Does sister X know this? Who was the other woman? Was it his sister? Where were they and what were they doing that would cause concern?”, but thought the better of taking that ball and running with it.
I have a friend who was a step above the level of pastor in his denomination. He was seen attending a sports event with a woman who was not his wife. He had a very plausible, logical explanation, but was still fired because of “the appearance of evil”. The real evil was the gossip who was a tattle-tail and the denominational leaders who fired the guy when he had done nothing wrong, leaving him high and dry with no way to provide for his family. You guessed it – the gossip was thanked for tattling.
Amen