APP: Gossip is one of the oldest and most common ways of sharing unconfirmed facts and viewpoints. It’s not always bad, because there are a lot of newspapers that carry “gossip” columns that detail the social and personal lives of celebrities and the elite members of a community. But most of the time it refers to the spreading of dirt and misinformation. The ability to distribute these exaggerated facts can now happen at an astonishing speed through social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. And there always seems to be an army of paparazzi waiting, moving around like ninjas to capture pictures of the personal lives of celebrities.
Gossip churns out from deep inside our hearts and makes a disgusting mess wherever it lands. It can make us feel better temporarily, but it’s an awful experience for whoever gets in the way! Distasteful language like gossip is tainted and ugly. Someone always gets hurt by it. The words that come out of our mouths have power to do damage or the potential for amazing good. Listen closely to the kind of talk coming from your mouth. If you don’t like what you hear, ask God to put fresh words on your tongue.
A gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy person keeps a secret.
PROVERBS 11:13 NIV
A perverse person stirs up conflict, and a gossip separates close friends.
PROVERBS 16:28 NIV
The mouths of fools are their undoing, and their lips are a snare to their very lives. The words of a gossip are like choice morsels; they go down to the inmost parts.
PROVERBS 18:7–8 NIV
A gossip goes around telling secrets, so don’t hang around with chatterers.
PROVERBS 20:19 NLT
“Don’t pass on malicious gossip. Don’t link up with a wicked person and give corrupt testimony. Don’t go along with the crowd in doing evil and don’t fudge your testimony in a case just to please the crowd.”
EXODUS 23:1 MSG
Though some tongues just love the taste of gossip, those who follow Jesus have better uses for language than that. Don’t talk dirty or silly. That kind of talk doesn’t fit our style. Thanksgiving is our dialect.
EPHESIANS 5:4 MSG