7 Ways to Stop Gossip

Ron Edumundson:

• Don’t repeat something you don’t know is true firsthand…secondhand knowledge is not enough to justify repeating. You will get something wrong and it will hurt others.
• Don’t repeat unless its helpful to do so and you have a vested interest in the situation, the people involved, and permission to share…doing so in the name of a prayer request is not a good excuse…
• Don’t “confess” other people’s sins. Even if the wrong included you and you feel the need to confess, share your story, but not someone else’s.
• If you must tell, and have passed the test on the first three suggestions, tell only what happened and not your commentary or “I think this is probably what happened” or why you think it happened…
• Choose to pray for others every time you are tempted to tell their story…instead of telling their story…
• When someone tells you something you don’t need to know, don’t allow curiosity to be your guide…follow your heart. Stop the person and tell them you don’t want to know! Remember, if they will spread gossip about others they will spread it about you!
• Keep the circle of confession limited to the people involved or to no more than needed for accountability purposes. The wider the circle and the more the story is repeated the more likely things will turn into gossip.

I Know What You Really Think of Me

Ever hit "reply all" when you should have just hit "reply"?  Depending on the content of the email that could be the worse feeling in the world once it leaves your inbox.  Tim Kreider, writing for the NY Times shares a story like this and brings some helpful reflections.  It's great writing and seen through the lens of gospel-centered community, this article is very meaningful.  Here is the conclusion:

We don’t give other people credit for the same interior complexity we take for granted in ourselves, the same capacity for holding contradictory feelings in balance, for complexly alloyed affections, for bottomless generosity of heart and petty, capricious malice. We can’t believe that anyone could be unkind to us and still be genuinely fond of us, although we do it all the time.

Years ago a friend of mine had a dream about a strange invention; a staircase you could descend deep underground, in which you heard recordings of all the things anyone had ever said about you, both good and bad. The catch was, you had to pass through all the worst things people had said before you could get to the highest compliments at the very bottom. There is no way I would ever make it more than two and a half steps down such a staircase, but I understand its terrible logic: if we want the rewards of being loved we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known.

Read the rest.

7 ways to Stop Gossip

When you read Paul's letters you can see that two things are very serious in his mind when it comes to the purity of the church: 1) false teaching and 2) disunity.  Gossip seeks to ensure that #2 has a strong foothold in the local congregation.  This should not be so.

Ron Edmundson has a great list to help us battle the deadly sin of gossip.  

• Don’t repeat something you don’t know is true firsthand…secondhand knowledge is not enough to justify repeating. You will get something wrong and it will hurt others.
• Don’t repeat unless its helpful to do so and you have a vested interest in the situation, the people involved, and permission to share…doing so in the name of a prayer request is not a good excuse…
• Don’t “confess” other people’s sins. Even if the wrong included you and you feel the need to confess, share your story, but not someone else’s.
• If you must tell, and have passed the test on the first three suggestions, tell only what happened and not your commentary or “I think this is probably what happened” or why you think it happened…
• Choose to pray for others every time you are tempted to tell their story…instead of telling their story…
• When someone tells you something you don’t need to know, don’t allow curiosity to be your guide…follow your heart. Stop the person and tell them you don’t want to know! Remember, if they will spread gossip about others they will spread it about you!
• Keep the circle of confession limited to the people involved or to no more than needed for accountability purposes. The wider the circle and the more the story is repeated the more likely things will turn into gossip.

(HT:  T-Wax)

It's Just a Whisper

Ray Ortlund:

The words of a whisperer are like delicious morsels;

they go down into the inner parts of the body.  Proverbs 18:8

Let’s all admit it.  We love gossip.  We love negative information about other people.  We love controversy.  Welove “Have you heard the latest?”  Each word is a delicious morsel, an irresistible delicacy.  We gulp these words down with relish.  But it is unmistakable evidence of our corruption within.  And each new contagious word we swallow goes down deep into us with a lasting impression and leaves us even sicker than we were before.  Truly, God is not mocked.

We are always speaking, even whispering, and listening, before the face of God.

Interview with Tullian Concerning Church Merger Controversy

Here is the interview.  Money quote:

I’ve never seen the transforming work of the Gospel happen so quickly and tangibly as I have over the last four months or so. Personally, I’ve been changed and transformed by the Gospel. For instance, I never knew just how dependent I’d become on human approval and acceptance until God took it away. Through this painful trial, God helped me rediscover the freedom that Jesus plus nothing equals everything!

Read the whole interview.

(HT:  @DashHouse)

A Good Warning About Gossip

Chris Brauns:

There for a while I was on a kick lately of eating chocolate toffee almond nuggets: creamy and sweet.

Unfortunately, when I ate those choice chocolates, I hadn’t seen the last of them. After they have tasted great, they show up just above my belt. As good as they are, they are not worth the calories. When I eat a chocolate, I give it a free pass to head for my stomach and out into my body.

That says, Proverbs is how gossip is.

“The words of a gossip are like choice morsels; they go down to a man’s inmost parts (Proverbs 18:8).”

So, important is this Proverb, that it is repeated verbatim later in Proverbs 26:22.

Bits of gossip are like chocolate nuggets: smooth and creamy, they melt in your mouth: it tastes good to be in the loop; it is sweet to hear someone else notice the same weaknesses in another that have frustrated you; it feels spiritual to ask for prayer – - gossip and grumbling and complaining are a tempting treat.

But, remember this. As sweet as those gossip nuggets may taste, snacking on them is not the end. Words of gossip accumulate on our spiritual waistlines. They shape the inmost part of our being. Gossip muddies our windshields so that everything looks dirty.

The next time you are tempted to take the tinfoil off a piece of gossip and pop it in your mouth. Think again. Words of gossip go down to our innermost being.

Gossip Diagnosed

Ray Ortlund with a great post about gossip. He writes:

Gossip leaves a wide trail of devastation wherever and however it goes – word of mouth, email, blogging, YouTube. It erodes trust and destroys morale. It creates a social environment of suspicion where everyone must wonder what is being said behind their backs and whether appearances of friendship are sincere. It ruins hard-won reputations with cowardly but effective weapons of misrepresentation. It manipulates people into taking sides when no such action is necessary or beneficial. It unleashes the dark powers of psychological transference, doing violence to the gossiper, to the one receiving the gossip and to the person being spoken against. It makes the Body of Christ look like the Body of Antichrist – destroyers rather than healers. It exhausts the energies we would otherwise devote to positive witness. It robs our Lord of the Church he deserves. It exposes the hostility in our hearts and discredits the gospel in the eyes of the world. Then we wonder why we don’t see more conversions, why “the ground is so hard.”

What should we do when a conversation starts slipping into gossip? We should immediately challenge the sin: “Hey friend, sorry to interrupt, but this is gossip. So here’s the deal. This conversation is now on hold until you go get _____________, and then you can start over and say whatever you feel you must say right to his face. I am willing to be a witness to that conversation, but I will not participate in gossip. What do you choose to do?” Amy Carmichael established this rule at her mission station: “Never about, always to.”

Read the rest.