Mike Kiewitt, Clearwater Community Baptist Church
Ephesians 4:29 You must let no unwholesome word come out of your mouth, but only what is beneficial for the building up of the one in need, that it may give grace to those who hear.
I made a mistakes years ago that I still remember to this day. A woman I worked with was pregnant and she had told this to another workmate of mine who then confided the secret to me. At the time I didn’t see it as being that big a secret so I casually mentioned it to the woman in question. She was taken aback that I knew and the next day my workmate tore a strip off of me for breaking his confidence. Looking back I’m not sure why I conveniently forgot that the woman’s pregnancy was a secret. It may have been ignorance on my part or perhaps not wanting
to feel left out of the loop. Regardless what I did was classified as gossip.
Those that engage in gossip are revealing themselves to be, or acting like, pathetic cowards. Gossip is a person’s attempt to make himself or herself feel powerful or worthwhile by building themselves up on the backs of others’ shortcomings. It shows a person who values herself so little that the only way they can feel better about themselves is speak badly about others.
Gossip does have the benefit of immediate pleasure, like a drug. There is sense of importance as others value with lustful delight the information you share. But like drugs the temporary pleasure will come with long term consequences of loneliness and a bad reputation.
Ultimately those that gossip are struggling with same problem I had, a lack of self-worth. Self-worth is established in meaningful, loving relationships of those whose opinion we value. Unfortunately even the best of relationships will endure times of dissatisfaction. The solution is to establish our worth in the God of the Bible that valued us so much that He had his son tortured and put to death for our faults and mistakes so that we could experience the greatest most meaningful, most loving relationship with Him.