HH, Sir Godfrey Gregg D.Div

What is the danger of gossiping

about your pastor and his family?

Gossiping is spreading stories or information about someone else to other people. Gossip can be false or intentionally slanderous, but even passing along information about someone that isn’t negative can be gossiping. Gossiping is not only a sin that God detests

 For I fear, lest, when I come, I shall not find you such as I would, and that I shall be found unto you such as ye would not: lest there be debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults: 2 Corinthians 12:20  Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Romans 1:29 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, 2 Timothy 3:3

but it hinders the church by building suspicion and distrust of others. Gossip can ruin anyone. Most people are aware of the way that gossiping destroys people’s reputations and does great harm to relationships. However, still, they continue to spread gossip because it feels good (The words of a talebearer are as wounds, and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly. Proverbs 26:22). The pastor and his family are easy targets for gossip in the church. Unfortunately, gossip has ruined the unity of a congregation and done great harm to the ministries of many faithful pastors. While most people can identify some forms of gossip easily (“did you hear what Mark did?”), gossip most often sneaks into the church through other means. Telling your close friend or small group more information than necessary about someone else so that they can pray for them could really just be gossip. One of the biggest ways that gossip is spread throughout the church is through complaining. Sometimes people prefer to spend time complaining about the people in ministry or the way things at church are run than spend time worshipping God in the community, learning about God through His Word, growing in their relationship with Him, and serving in the work of ministry both inside and outside of the church. Jude says that this kind of behaviour is fueled by sinful desires for one’s own advantage, and it often results in divisions in the church (These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men’s persons in admiration because of advantage. Jude 1:16). James realized the power of the tongue, calling it a world of unrighteousness, a fire set aflame by hell that stains the whole body, changing the course of people’s lives (And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell. James 3:6). Our words can do a lot to help or harm the ministry, so what can you do to end gossip and build up your pastor and your church (Ephesians 4:15–16, 25, 29)?