Gossip

Maybe it's because I never paid attention to the magazines situated at the end of the check out aisles at grocery stores when I was growing up (I was reading Dance Magazine, Bazaar, Glamor, and Vogue back in the day.), but it really seems there are more gossip magazines these days. I might be wrong, I remember National Inquirer and Star from my youth, they were more like the magazine inserts in the Sunday edition of the Houston Chronicle back then.

Christians work to avoid gossip like the plague but we see it with our eyes on the magazine racks, we hear it on TV, so many tabloid shows, even serious news shows on cable devote time to gossip, but they report it as news not gossip.

I think when we are surrounded on all sides by gossip, it makes it harder to keep our mouths closed and not report the latest fact about some one's marriage, wayward child, drunk mother etc. (Much gossip is spread in the guise of prayer requests...)

The Bible has a lot to say about the words of our mouth as in let them be few and gossip. Gossip was a problem years ago when I worked at a company with 20 other women...ay chihuahua, lots of gossip. Then for years I worked in a small company with 8 men and 1 other woman, no gossip, lots of sports talk and funny police and FBI cases they had worked. Now I work part time at a small company, no gossip lots of policitical discussions, talk about the Lord, the news etc.

Here are a few Scriptures pertaining to gossip:

The words of a gossip are like choice morsels; they go down to a man's inmost parts.

Without wood a fire goes out; without gossip a quarrel dies down.

Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 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

For I am afraid that when I come I may not find you as I want you to be, and you may not find me as you want me to be. I fear that there may be quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, factions, slander, gossip, arrogance and disorder.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if the Body of Christ would stop gossiping? I think that alone would lead so many unsaved people to the Lord. We need to be mindful of the example we set with conversation as we work at church, work in the world, shop, dine, sit under the dryer at the beauty shop...am I speaking to anyone?

Have a blessed, gossip free day!