Gossip is a destroyer

I don’t know of a single person who hasn’t been a victim of gossip and, at the same time, a gossiper about others. What’s more, every one of us gets caught up in gossip – coming and going – every single day.

More than once I’ve had to come to the rescue of family and friends who were the victims of gossip; a lot more than once I’ve had to be shamed because of things I said about others. There’s one thing about gossip that you and I need to remember: Gossip always finds its way home. Always.

The Proverbs, in the Old Testament, warn against gossip at least four different times. (Proverbs 20:19, Proverbs 11:12-13, Proverbs 16:28, and Proverbs 18:7-8). Proverbs 16:28 likens a gossip to a “perverse man.” A gossiper is defined as “one who reveals secrets, one who goes about as a tale-bearer or scandal-monger.” Many will position gossip as “information sharing” or “within the realm of good business practice” or even, wickedly, as “prayer requests.”

Many, with an already poor self-esteem, lacking attention or praise or recognition from anyone about anything, will use gossip to pull others down and lift themselves up. Gossipers like to be at the center of attention; the center of the all-knowing, all-wise and all-perfect.

In Romans 1:18-32, Paul writes boldly and straight-forward about “God’s Anger at Sin.” Paul is writing about all of us – wrapped up in our sinful living. Put a finger on the first sentence of v. 26 that reads, “That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires.” We’ll come back to that.

Beginning in verse 28, Paul writes, “When they refused to acknowledge God, He abandoned them to their evil minds and let them do things that should never be done. (Again, Paul writes that God abandons us). Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, fighting, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud and boastful. They are forever inventing new ways of sinning and are disobedient to their parents. They refuse to understand, break their promises, are heartless and unforgiving. They are fully aware of God’s death penalty for those who do these things, yet they go right ahead and do them anyway. And, worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too.”

You may be asking, “Scott, who is Paul writing about?”

Continue reading into Romans 2:1 – “You may be saying, 'What terrible people, you have been talking about?' But you are just as bad, and you have no excuse! When you say they are wicked and should be punished, you are condemning yourself, for you do these very same things. (v. 2) And, we know that God, in his justice, will punish anyone who does such things.”

Here are some things we need to consider:

• Paul throws a wide net in making a case that God hates sin – all sin – and there’s no pecking order for it. Beyond the listing in v. 28-32, Paul also includes homosexuality in v. 26-27. But, understand, God hates all of it equally. He lists murder in the same sentence with gossip. I thought that was interesting, especially since gossip does murder another person’s reputation and character. Anything that lifts self over God and others is sinful, and God hates it.
• In Matthew 28:19, Jesus gives us clear direction that we are to go and make disciples, and help people discover Jesus as Savior. As we have studied before, this mission often includes building relationships with people. If we are involved in envy, fighting, deception, gossip, breaking promises and greed, well, we are not building relationships – we are destroying them. Not only that, but we are exhausted in the things of sin and have no energy left to reflect Jesus.
• We are all guilty. I can point a finger at a homosexual. You can whisper around about someone’s alcohol problem. We can talk arrogantly about someone’s sexual missteps; we can hold up another person’s failings and shake them out for all to see. But, as you and I do this to others, we need to remember that somewhere someone is breathing that same acidic breath in our direction. God will punish you and me, and everyone, for our lack of mercy and grace and love toward others.
• What does God’s punishment look like? In v. 26 and again in v. 28, Paul writes that God abandons us. I can’t think of a punishment worse that being out of daily fellowship with Almighty God. It’s as if God takes His hands off of us and lets us slip into the muck of the world. We lose our calm, we lose our peace, we lose our courage, we lose our patience, we lose our sense of direction, and we lose our sense of right and wrong. We become adrift because we can’t be in fellowship with God, following Jesus, and be mired up in hurting others with our tongues. We can’t be destroying people on the one hand and be in the center of God’s will for us at the same time. Each of us chooses - God or self. And, God lets us choose.

To put the wickedness of gossip in a modern day context, I turn to Joseph Goebbels, who served as Adolph Hitler’s Reich Minister of Propoganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. It was Goebbels’ strategy that vilified the Jews so that everyday Germans would not rise up when the Third Reich moved in to destroy the Jews. Goebbels led book burning, took control of the media, produced anti-Jewish films, and created a frenzy of anti-Jewish sentiment throughout the German people. But, it has been said of Goebbels, and wrote of him, that his most effective tool in pushing people toward mass hate and extermination was simply this: The Whisper Method of propaganda. Gossip.

The Whisper Method of propaganda works like this: Human nature is so rotten that when presented information about another person – good or bad – we can’t help but tell someone else and often twist it to our own biases. My friends, I want to tell you something. This is dangerous shifting-sand. If you and I do anything to harm the ones that God loves (everyone), we can fully expect that to come home to us. Gossip finds its way home.

James 3:6: The tongue is a flame of fire. It is a whole world of wickedness, corrupting your entire body. It can set your whole life on fire, for it is set on fire by hell itself.”

This lesson has given me some things to clean up in my own life, and to pray about with vigor. Here are a few considerations. My friend Rob Motley would call them “guard rails” in daily living.

• Let’s not talk about anyone without their permission. I know that’s impossible, but let’s set it as a goal to perhaps curb some of our gossip.
•  Let’s not say anything about anyone that would hurt another person’s reputation; let’s not say anything about someone that we are not willing to say directly to them. Let’s stop living around the perimeter of people’s lives, guessing and speculating about what’s happening with them. Let’s instead get inside people’s lives, live with them, encourage them and even correct them toward being complete with Jesus Christ
•   Let’s protect relationships, preserving the opportunity to talk about Jesus and faith.
• When in positions to talk about someone as in an employment discussion or whether to accept someone as a volunteer, let’s seek open and prayerful discernment regarding what’s appropriate and inappropriate to discuss. Let’s get God in the center of our discussions and trust Him to guide our motives and our discussions.