Restoring Kingdom Builders

During my first year of college, someone told me about a rumor that was going around our church about one of my friends and me.  The gist of the rumor was, “Isn’t it a shame that Jim and [so and so] are no longer getting along?”  What was being said was not true and really ticked me off – so I decided to do some detective work and locate the source of the rumor.

I asked the person who told me the rumor who they heard it from, and when they told me, I went to that person’s house.  But that individual wasn’t the source.  They heard it from somebody else.

So I went to the next person’s house … and so on, for most of the morning.  And guess what?

I never did find out who started the rumor.

I learned a lesson that day.  Since you and I cannot control other people’s tongues, all we can do is control our own ears and not pay attention to everything that everybody says about us.

In other words, there will always be gossips, and we cannot rid the world of them, try as we might.

But we can rid the world of one gossip: ourselves.

What is gossip?  To paraphrase a Supreme Court judge, “I know it when I hear it.”

It’s not gossip to talk about other people, otherwise every time we talked about President Obama or the Lord Jesus, we would be guilty of a sin – and that’s just plain silly.

It’s not gossip to relay bad news about someone.  If a friend of mine goes into the hospital, and I mention that to a few people, that’s not gossip.  Or if someone at my workplace loses a job, and I share that information with a co-worker, that’s not gossip.

It’s not gossip to mention a person’s humanity.  Several weeks ago, our pastor mentioned that he is afraid of heights.  I’m not crazy about deep water.  My wife is not a lover of snakes.  If you want to repeat that information to other people, they’ll probably say, “So what?”  Everybody is afraid of something.  That just means we’re human.

It’s not gossip to express an opinion about someone.  For instance, I cannot watch any Red Carpet events that happen before the Grammys or the Oscars.  It drives me crazy to see and hear celebrity gawkers making a big deal about things that don’t matter (like hair and dresses – you know).  Even though I’ll express some cynicism about those events, that isn’t gossip.  (It’s just discernment!)

So when does gossip occur?

Gossip occurs when I share information about another person and I add a malicious element to it.  For example, “Did you hear that Joe is in the hospital?”  (Nothing wrong with that.)  “I always knew that one day, his habit of eating hot dogs would catch up with him.”  (Ouch!  Gossip!)

Gossip also occurs when I speculate about why someone is having a problem.  “Did you hear that the Horners just separated?”  (If it’s public knowledge, that isn’t necessarily gossip.)  “I’ll bet it’s because of that new single guy in their small group.”  (Red flag!  Gossip!)

Gossip also occurs when we share privileged information about someone we know.  That individual trusts us with a secret, but we just can’t keep it to ourselves any longer.  We have to tell somebody – often the first person we see!  “I’m not supposed to tell you this, but Tim and his family are leaving the church and I’ve heard it’s because they don’t like the youth program.”  (No, no, no!  That’s clearly gossip!)

Finally, gossip occurs when I talk about someone behind their back.  If I notice a weakness in someone’s life, and I really love them, I might ask the Lord to show me a time when I might talk to them about it.  But instead of doing that, I chicken out and tell others what I’ve noticed but I never tell the person I’m gossipping about to their face.

Many years ago, when I was a youth pastor, I did a question-and-answer session with some of the kids in our church.  One of the girls asked me, “Why don’t your socks match?”  I had put my socks on in the dark that morning and had gone all day without noticing what that girl did notice.  She could have told the person next to her about my socks, and that person could have told someone else, and pretty soon, everyone in the room might have known about my mismatch except me.  But to her credit, she asked me directly about the socks – and we all had a pretty good laugh about my mistake.

In 1 Timothy 3:11, Paul discusses the qualifications for deacon’s wives in the local church.  Paul writes, “In the same way, their wives are to be women worthy of respect, not malicious talkers but temperate and trustworthy in everything.”  The phrase “malicious talkers” is literally “she-devils.”  The word “devil” means “slanderer.”  Paul tells Timothy that he is to avoid selecting men as spiritual leaders who have “she-devils” as wives.  Rather, the wife of a spiritual leader should be “trustworthy in everything.”

Why bring this up?  Because gossip destroys people.  Gossip destroys other Christians.  Gossip destroys pastors.  And gossip destroys churches.  Gossips can be “she-devils” or “he-devils,” but please notice: gossipping never advances Christ’s work.  It only advances Satan’s.  The devil is the one who uses deception to destroy the work of Christ.

Ten years ago, I had a friend who served as the pastor of a church that had purchased a parcel of land and wanted to build a school on it.  The neighbors in the surrounding community fiercely opposed the project, which was their right.  But if they dealt with the facts, they would have lost the fight outright.  One day, I visited the homeowners building in our neighborhood and noticed that the HOA newsletter devoted its two pages to a litany of reasons why the school project should be opposed.  When I read over their arguments, I counted fifteen lies!  The church had been repeating the facts about the project in the newspaper and at public meetings, but that didn’t stop the opposition.  They had gossip on their side … but they lost anyway.  Gossippers are never winners.

And maybe that’s why they gossip in the first place.  Gossips don’t tend to focus on losers.  They tend to focus on winners.  They become aware of people who seem to have more authority or money or fame or intelligence – or even spirituality – and they become jealous of their success, so they tear them down with their words to bring them down to size.  Rather than channeling their energies into building others up, they major in tearing others down.

If we recognize that we do gossip – and we all do at times – how can we stop doing it?

The most effective deterrents to gossip often come from Scripture.  Some of the Proverbs deal with gossip in a simple but powerful way.  For example, Proverbs 11:13 says, “A gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy man keeps a secret.”  Which of the two do you want to be: a gossip or a trustworthy person?  (Me, too.)  Or how about  Proverbs 17:9: “He who covers over an offense promotes love, but whoever repeats the matter separates close friends.”  If I know about a sin someone has committed, should I conceal it from others or expose it to their inquiring minds?  (If I don’t want to have any good friends, I should expose the secret.)  Or how about Proverbs 10:19,  one of my very favorite verses?  “When words are many, sin is not absent, but he who holds his tongue is wise.”  Sometimes we gossip just because we talk too much!  Like 24-hour cable TV, sometimes we don’t know how to fill the silence so we revert to talking about other people.

For some, a good dose of James 3:1-12 can stop them from gossipping for quite a while.  Much of the Book of James comes straight from the Sermon on the Mount – and that’s where I have found my greatest motivation to guard my tongue.

Jesus’ words in Matthew 7:1-2 always pierce my heart : “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.  For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”  In other words, “what goes around, comes around.”  If I harshly criticize others behind their back, others will just as harshly criticize me behind my back.  If I invest my precious time in being petty about others, then others will invest their time in being petty about me.  If I “dish it out,” I better be ready to “take it,” Jesus says, because that’s the way His universe works.

But Jesus implies that if I’m kind in talking about others, then others will be kind talking about me.  If I’m merciful to others, they will be merciful toward me.  Skip down ten verses in Matthew 7 to the Golden Rule: “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 7:12).

I can either spend my time loving others or harming them with my words.  I can either build people up or tear them down verbally.

That’s why when I write, I will be critical of practices that I believe divide Christians and churches, but I will rarely mention people’s names.  In fact, I will do my best to disguise the identity of those I use as illustrations.

What have you found most effective in curtailing gossip in your own life?