Gossip Has Disruptive and Destructive Consequences
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Gossip Is Disruptive and Destructive
Gossip is a universal reality. Wherever there are people, there is gossip. While living in the Philippines, my Filipino friends told me gossip was a means of entertainment taken to an art form. In America, it’s become a big business. Even sports commentators spend an inordinate amount of time passing on “insider information.”
Sadly, gossip is a disruptive and destructive influence in many churches, way too often.
Gossip—by nature—is in reference to someone other than the people who engage in either speaking or listening to the gossip. It’s seductive and destructive because it’s passing on personal, intimate, or sensational information about someone else at their expense.
Think of how many TV shows, IG and FB posts, both print and online magazines—across all forms of media—focus on inside scoops and dirt about celebrities, athletes, or even ordinary people. I see it as mass voyeurism—prying observers who seek the sordid or the scandalous.
Gossip is disruptive talk, and it soon becomes corrosive to us. It’s seductive yet destructive. Why are we so consumed with knowing all this personal information about everybody else?
Perhaps it’s a bit of FOMO. Missing out on what others may know seems to matter to us. Way too much. But think how long you or I have lived without knowing whatever it is we think we’re missing out on. In the end, it’s useless and unnecessary information.
I think the reason we’re seduced by gossip goes deeper than that. It’s a lot darker and more destructive. Consider what these few verses in Proverbs 26 tell us.
Scripture
Without wood a fire goes out,
and without gossip a quarrel dies down.
As charcoal fuels burning coals and wood fuels fire,
so a quarrelsome person fuels a dispute.
The words of a gossip are swallowed greedily,
and they go down into a person’s innermost being. (Proverbs 26:20-22 GW)
(Context— (Proverbs 26:13-28 GW)
Simple insights
We’re told here that, “without gossip, a quarrel dies down.” Just as a fire needs combustible material (wood) to keep burning, gossip fuels quarrels and stirs up strife and grief. We can define gossip as a rumor or report.
Whenever there's breaking news, rumors and reports spread rapidly. Though often unsubstantiated, they keep cropping up and circulating even after the truth dispels them. Some people still say the holocaust or the 9-11 terror attacks were hoaxes. But then, some people still think the earth is flat.
A quarrelsome person is no different. Even after an argument is resolved or dismissed, a quarrelsome person will find a way to continue it. We see this every day on news talk shows—regardless of your political bent—on the Twitter-sphere (now “X”), not to mention Facebook. Sigh.
A pastor friend has posted the following for nearly 1700 days straight—
Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. (2 Tim 2:23)
We would all do well to heed this admonition.
Perhaps the darkest side of gossip is when it’s “…swallowed greedily… into a person’s innermost being.” This unneeded and destructive personal information gets buried in our hearts and corrupts us. It’s like verbal junk food.
It causes us to see certain people in a bad light—diminishing them in our eyes and corrupting us like cancer, eating away at whatever is good and healthy in us. With gossip, we are often looking for who is to blame or at fault in a situation.
Why do we want to find fault or place blame? Somehow, we’re deceived into thinking it makes us better than others. It doesn’t. It never will. When we put others down, it doesn’t elevate us, it does the opposite. But this has continued since the beginning of time.
What can we do to stop swallowing this verbal junk food?
Refuse to listen or believe gossip. Instead, lay whatever horrid or sordid thing is said at the feet of the Lord, and leave it there in prayer. As it says in more than one place—
Hatred stirs up conflict, but love covers over all wrongs. (Prov 10:12 NIV) [also see– Prov 17:9 and 1 Peter 4:8]
It’s obvious what we need to do about generating gossip and quarrels. Shut our mouths. Just. Don’t. Pass. It. On. It’s really that simple. And one more reminder—
Whoever covers an offense seeks love,
But he who repeats a matter separates close friends. (Prov 17:9 ESV).
Reflection—
The reason we’re seduced by gossip goes deeper and is darker and more destructive than just a few words. It’s passed on at the expense of others and corrupts us like cancer, eating away at whatever is good and healthy in us.
Prayer Focus—
If you find it too easy to listen to gossip and pass it on, ask God’s help to repent of this. Ask the Lord to help you shut your ears to gossip and quarreling, and to shun such corrosive and destructive thoughts and words.
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