“Nothing makes a long story short like the arrival of the person you just happen to be talking about.”
Gossip is one of the most subtle and common vices of speech — and it isn’t just common among tabloid reporters or celebrity magazines. It creeps into prayer requests, text threads, dinner-table catch-ups, and small-town conversations. Before gossip can be stopped, it must be detected. Here are three telltale symptoms to help you recognize it the moment it starts.
“Gossip does not need to be false in order to be evil. There’s a whole lot of truth that should not be passed around.”
What Gossip Actually Is
Gossip involves the distortion of facts, incomplete facts, or false information. It magnifies and sensationalizes rumors and partial information. It occurs with wrong motives, and it causes the hearer to draw inaccurate conclusions and respond with unscriptural solutions. It is so rampant and pervasive that it embraces men as well as women, young people as well as older people, singles as well as those who are married.
Will Rogers is credited with saying: “The only time people dislike gossip is when you gossip about them.”
Symptom One: Whispering
Whispering in and of itself is not wrong — it can be polite in a library, a theater, or a memorial service. But there is a type of whispering that is downright sinful. The apostle Paul, in 2 Corinthians 12:20, lists gossip — the Greek word psithurismos, meaning whispering or murmuring — alongside strife, jealousy, angry tempers, slanders, arrogance, and disturbances.
A New Testament scholar named Barclay notes that this kind of gossip is “an underground movement which will not face him, and an insidious poisoning of the atmosphere whose source he cannot attack because he does not know it.” In Romans 1:29, God places gossips — literally, whisperers — in the same catalog as those filled with unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil, and murder.
“The words of a whisperer are like dainty morsels, and they go down into the innermost parts of the body.” — Proverbs 18:8
Symptom Two: Defaming
Gossip occurs when there is defaming — injuring a person’s reputation or credibility with malicious statements. R.G. LeTourneau, a successful Christian businessman, once described a piece of earth-moving equipment called the Model G. When asked what the G stood for, his salesman answered: “Gossip — because, like tale-bearers, our equipment moves a whole lot of dirt, and moves it quickly.”
In 1 Timothy 3:11, Paul uses the word diabolos — the very word for the devil — to describe malicious gossips. A slanderer poisons three persons: the speaker, the listener, and the third party. According to 1 Peter 2:1-2, slander ruins a person’s ability to spiritually grow. And Proverbs 16:28 warns: “A perverse man spreads strife, and a slanderer separates intimate friends.”
Symptom Three: Babbling
Babbling is another form of gossip. Webster’s New World Dictionary defines babble as “talking too much or foolishly.” In 1 Timothy 5:13, Paul warns about those who “learn to be idle, as they go around from house to house — and not merely idle, but also gossips and busybodies, talking about things not proper to mention.”
The Greek word phluaros paints a picture of a chimney flue — a loose talker, rambling about whatever comes to mind. A great clue that you may be a babbler: read the nonverbal communication of others. Are they checking their watch? Looking for an escape? Charles Allen put it well: “Those of great minds discuss ideas. People of mediocre minds discuss events. And those of small minds discuss other people.”
Pulling It Together
We’ve considered three telltale symptoms of gossip — whispering, defaming, and babbling. Gossip has got to be detected before it can be stopped. You have to recognize it for what it actually is before you can make the conscious decision to head it off at the pass. You can be a part of the solution rather than a part of the problem.
Whispering
Murmuring secrets that should not be expressed — an underground movement that poisons without being seen.
Defaming
Using malicious statements to destroy another person’s credibility and reputation — throwing dirt that makes you lose ground.
Babbling
Excessively talking with foolish, unfiltered words — making others want to run in a completely different direction.
“Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth. Keep watch over the door of my lips.” — Psalm 141:3
If you’ve realized today that there’s a long list of people you have gossiped against — or that you’ve been involved in babbling or whispering — confess that as sin to the Lord. Ask God to give you a strong resolve to turn away from that sinful type of communication. The Spirit of the living God can transform your communication, so that it could not be said of you that you’re a gossip.
A Word From My Heart to Yours
Maybe as you’ve been reading, you’ve realized that you don’t even know the source of power — and that is Jesus Christ. No wonder you’re having such a challenge with gossip. Becoming a child of God is not based on going through some religious rigmarole. It has nothing to do with becoming a church member, or getting baptized, or getting involved in serving at a church. Becoming a child of God comes down to receiving Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and Lord.
He lived the perfect life you and I could never live. He went to the cross and died for every sin you have ever committed and ever will commit — including the sins of the tongue. He was buried, and on the third day He was bodily raised from the dead. And He is alive today, ready to come into your life the moment you receive Him. The forgiveness He offers is past, present, and future. The home He has prepared for you in heaven is real. And the new heart He gives is one that, by His Spirit, can finally tame that tongue of yours.
Come to Him. He’s waiting.
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