Gossip will blindside you when you are a victim of it, and it doesn’t matter who that gossip comes from. What purpose does talking about someone, or running with a tattling tale serve, whether you are 5, 10, 15, 20—40, 60? You get the idea. As children, when we feel slighted, we do run to mom or dad to help us defend against the wrongs of the world…”mommy, she hit me, or he took my toy”….you expect that from children as part of them learning boundaries and how to behave. When a child snoops for Christmas presents then tells their siblings the results of snooping, that becomes the ground work of the sin of gossip, on all kinds of levels. That tattling is early gossip….say did you hear? Guess what so and so said? If it’s not stopped in children, it grows into adulthood. We also love to hear the “Stuff” about other people….what doctor had an affair, who had a malpractice suit, what that patient’s family said, looked like, smelled like or did…..gossip. We even buy magazines to fill the need that some of us have developed for gossip-celebrity news, it’s gossip.
When it comes down to it, WHO CARES?! What purpose does it serve except to create drama for the individuals who are involved? And that is where it gets really painful-the individual gossiped about has no defense against the fact that something probably pretty personal has just been exposed for no purpose other than to humiliate them or create bad feelings in other people toward that person…then comes judgement, resentment, anger, all kinds of emotions that get distorted into sin that should never have been created in the first place.
Gossip–often a plea for an individual who speaks it to be the center of attention. Why? The Bible calls gossip and slander a sin, just like murder is a sin. A sin is a sin is a sin. They are all equal. So, by gossiping, you sin. And by sinning, you condemn yourself to eternal death…..Hell. Not only have you made someone else’s life miserable in exposing something that was better left unsaid, you condemned yourself to Hell for it. I’m not going to say something that people want to hear, I’m going to tell you the truth. Period. Gossip is a sin. Gossip will send you to an eternal life of misery. Proverbs 6:16 speaks of the 7 things God hates:
haughty eyes,
a lying tongue,
hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked schemes,
feet that are quick to rush into evil,
a false witness who pours out lies
and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.
God hates sin. Gossip fits into at least three of these verse lines listed, and if the gossip is not truthful, its 5. That’s pretty bad. James 3:1-18 speaks about bridling your tongue, and how difficult it is to tame the tongue. It is all too easy for us to speak badly of someone. The tongue can praise God and curse people. The Bible says that you can’t praise God and sing His glories on the one hand, then turn around and badmouth people on the other. Clean water and bad water can’t come out of the same faucet. And what comes out of the mouth is a reflection of your heart, what you truly feel.
Women love to gossip. Men do too. It isn’t a gender specific sin. Women seem to be accused of it more, seem to really do it more than men, maybe because we talk more than men. It’s been my observance, in general terms, that women talk in circles and men speak more directly. Women go off on rabbit trails then circle back to topic, giving room for gossip. The Bible talks about it in 1 Timothy, 5-15. Paraphrased: Young women who get into the habit of being idle go from house to house, and in addition to doing nothing, they become busybodies who talk nonsense, saying things they shouldn’t. That is gossip, defined very plainly and identifying women as taking opportunity to slander when there is nothing else to do. If it isn’t something you would want someone to say about you, then don’t say it. In today’s terms, what would Jesus do? He certainly wouldn’t tell tales about people, or spread rumors, or start slander. He wouldn’t cause hurt to the person who was being focused on, He would reach out and talk to them to see if He could help them somehow, maybe overcome fear, or self-doubt, or help that person understand what is going on in their life. And THAT is what we should be doing, too.
If you are victim of gossip, forgiveness of the gossiper is in order. He/she will have to answer for their actions before God. Not “their” God. God Himself. He does exist. If you do gossip, think about what you are doing to yourself for eternity. And if you don’t have faith in God, consider what in the world saying something bad about another person is going to do for you? We have a hard enough time in this world as it is with the way society is going. Don’t make it harder on yourself than it already is, don’t make life more miserable for people who are already struggling to find peace in the misery of everyday life.
It’s all about saving our soul, our salvation and how we really want to spend our life after we leave this one. Heaven and Hell are for real. God and Jesus are very much alive. What we do here, in this life, matters and it effects what happens after we die and leave this existence. We can’t see God, or so we think….personally I believe just looking around Earth and past the dirt and trash, His beauty is everywhere….we can’t see Jesus, so we have a difficult time believing that what is written in the Bible is real. It is. It is all real, all truth. If we are to happily and joyfully live beyond this life, we need to start changing how 
we are, what we are like to other people. An old adage “if you don’t have anything nice to say about someone, don’t say it at all” is advice on bridling your tongue. It’s going to be a work in progress for most of us, change doesn’t happen over night because habits die hard, they feel comfortable to us. It’s what God wants, though. It’s what Jesus came here to teach us for the short time that he had to preach. It goes deeper than that…you have to accept Jesus for what He is, a man who is God, who came and died for us so we could all live. And He preached how to live too, once we accept Him as the ultimate sacrifice. Start by giving somebody a break. Don’t spread that story, don’t slander someone’s reputation, don’t stomp on someone’s personal secrets. Turn a kind word instead. It will do everyone involved good.
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