They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Romans 1:29-31
The Bible is clear, gossip is wickedness and evil. As Christians we are to guard our tongues and keep from repeating gossip. But what about listening to gossip? Sometimes as Christians we think listening is okay as long as we don't repeat what we've heard.
Proverbs 20:19 says to "avoid a man who talks too much" in regard to gossip. So it is clear, we should not just guard our mouths but our ears as well. Not only that, but Proberbs 18:8 and 26:22 repeat the same warning, "The words of a gossip are like choice morsels; they go down to a man's inmost parts." What we hear goes in our "inmost parts." Or in the words of computer programming, "Garbage in, garbage out." We need to guard what goes in us, to protect what comes out of us.
Think you've got this one down? I did too. Lately however, God has been poking me about my "entertainment." This is what the media calls gossip now days. Whether it's People magazine, Entertainment Tonight or an online "Celebrity News" site, they are all in the business of gossip. As a matter of fact, People.com had more than 14.5 million monthly unique visitors as of March 2010, per the Time Warner website. That's 14.5 million people reading celebrity gossip every month. Where you one of them?
The world tells us gossip is okay. The Bible says it is evil. Who are you going to believe? And will your actions show it?
3 comments:
I like this phrase (which I believe came from the old Hee Haw TV show): "I'm not one to repeat gossip, so you'd better listen close the first time."
And when God is poking, we need to pay attention. *grin*
The world never looks out for my good. I'm going to believe the Bible!
Even in the earliest days of the Bible gossip was a tempting treat so I don't feel alone in my struggles to avoid it altogether. Like you pointed out there are so many "innocent-everybody's-doing-it" behaviors that fool us into thinking our actions are OK.
Good thoughts, Kelly.
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