This weekend Doug and I were standing outside the First UMC in Hendersonville after a meeting. I was ready to go - he wanted to talk to someone about a rumor he'd heard. Some nasty gossip was making its way around our little group.
In the Old Testament, one of the 10 Commandments was to not bear false witness against our neighbor. The penalty for being a tale bearer (gossip, fear stoking, scam spreading) was death. James wrote that two sided tongues made unstable people. Gossips do not believe in anything. They are not solid people.
I read in another book that gossip is nothing but a polite form of character assassination. The only reason I can think of to destroy another person's character reference is insecurity about my own. We already see from James that gossips are unstable so it is not modern thinking alone to believe that insecurity is the reason to gossip. Fear causes us to self destruct - pride causes us to attempt to destroy another.
Lack of foundation is the source of gossip. Why would one with no support under them decide to be the foundation of another person's character? Its a big scam - that's what gossip is. Its an elaborate hoax to cover up one's rootless and unstable life.
1 comment:
but a person is so much more powerful if they have knowledge about a person that other people don't have...
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