“Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” (Ephesians 4:29 NIV)
A good indication of how well a team works together is if you ask one member to describe their colleague. The idea is that if your colleague speaks positively of you, then you are getting on well. However in so many situations: work, school, church and even in the home this is not the case. It’s very often the case that when you talk about someone that they aren’t there, but should that change how you speak? If you open a magazine the first thing you’re likely to see is the ‘gossip column’, if you look on the back of a newspaper you are likely to find ‘football transfer gossip’. Gossiping is something that God detests; we know that for a fact, yet the media that we watch and read seems intent on glorifying gossip and making it seem normal. Can you imagine having a conversation where no bad word is said? It takes more effort to continually talk badly about someone than it does to be constructive and positive. All because they can’t hear you doesn’t mean you have free licence to say what you want, no matter what they may have done to you.
“Without wood a fire goes out; without a gossip a quarrel dies down.” (Proverbs 26:20 NIV)
Now there are three main things that people who gossip do, proverbs describes them and denounces such people. Without gossipers there would be far less arguments, people would stop exaggerating situations and spitting poisonous lies at each other. “A gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy person keeps a secret” (Proverbs 11:13). People who gossip are notoriously thought to be untrustworthy, whether that's within a home or a whole community. If you can’t be trusted to keep a secret then two things will happen. 1. People won’t confide in you and you will have shallow relationships. 2. God will not be very pleased with your talking ability and you will continue to distance yourself from Him. The silly thing about gossiping is that it may affect the person you are talking about, in their relationship with other people but it affects YOUR relationship with God because He will just turn away from you.
Proverbs tells us a lot about how to avoid gossips, and how they bring such negative attention into their own lives and those around them. The only words that come from our mouths should be to build up somebody else; otherwise they’re idle or poisonous. The person you gossip about may not hear but God hears everything and sooner or later everyone else will too. If you want to avoid being labelled as someone who “separates close friends” (Proverbs 16:28) then it’s time to start being more productive. As Christians we are meant to be on the same team. That doesn’t mean we all agree on everything or have the same ideas, but it means we should genuinely be interested in helping each other to do better. Stop the gossip and start constructing a faith made of love, care, trust and honesty.
Wed Jun 05, 2013 8:49 pm by Divinamarie
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