However, it is gossip when we see people doing things that do not pertain to us personally, especially without strong evidence and details about what we think we see.
For many years there has been family gossip based on the testimonies of those who were jealous and chose to view an action that they had few if any details about and that did not pertain to them.
One of the most damaging forms of gossip is when people judge our marriages based on one or two elements of it without understanding the whole matter, even without knowing exactly what has occurred.
Having encountered those who felt superior, allowing themselves the privilege of interpreting minor scanty events or language based on their own biases against us, they will blow something benign completely out of proportion to justify their prejudice against us.
When you encounter those who have a propensity to judge matters that are none of their business, it is time to release them as friends or family. There is no value in doing such things as these except to elevate themselves.
Their personal bias and judgments do nothing except to cause trouble in the lives of those they gossip about.
When we share with a dear confidant, a friend we can trust, something important to us, we will know it will not go any further and they will pray for us. It makes no sense to share our deepest things with someone who is given to gossip, they will not care about you, only about having information about you.
Don't beat yourself up over perhaps ignorantly sharing private important information with someone, only to find out later they loved the tidbits to glean what they wanted from it to be able to use half truths in gossip against you. We have all had disloyal friends that we didn't know were disloyal until they shared and twisted information about us to others.
Sadly most people will not ask us the truth, they will enjoy the morsels of twisted gossip choosing to believe the first thing they heard. Many are even afraid to ask for fear of the reaction of the person who was the target of gossip, but inwardly they sort of believed it, while nothing is ever cleared up, the truth is never told and the loss of friends and family over it is hard and cannot be reconciled.
When we know someone who gossips regularly turning people against one another we must remove them from our lives. It is better to let them tell out and out lies than for them to have half truths to disseminate.
Keep in mind that half truths cause people to believe the lie because part is true so the rest must be true too.
I remember years ago a family member thought she was telling on us when she spread through the family that we were at the bar drinking on a Saturday morning. We are not bar people, but many of them were.
This person saw our car parked in a parking lot where there was a bar but the bar was closed. My husband and I were across the street at a flea market where the lot was too full so we parked across the street in the bar parking lot. When we finally told the story as we chuckled a little, some chose not to believe us, because they liked the lie they heard first.
Most of you could probably relate to this nonsense, someone took an innocent event and turned it into something ugly and everyone hearing it chose the lie over the truth when they finally heard it.
Hitler said once that if you tell a big enough lie long enough, eventually everyone will believe it. It is also true that if we tell a half truth once, that is the lie people will believe, whatever is heard first will be the choice of those who love their gossip.
For believers in Christ it is best to say, "I don't know " a lot when we do not have all the facts. Guessing what could be true based on one or two bits of information is not for the believer, we are not to pass on information without all the facts and only if those facts pertain to others.
Proverbs 16:27-29 "…27 A worthless man digs up evil, While his words are like scorching fire. 28 A perverse man spreads strife, And a slanderer separates intimate friends. 29 A man of violence entices his neighbor And leads him in a way that is not good.…"
Notice that God equates gossip and trouble makers with violence.
1 John 3:14-15 "…14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. The one who does not love remains in death. 15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that eternal life does not reside in a murderer. "
Gossip is hatred, hatred destroys the reputation of good men for no other reason except to cause others to hate just as the gossiper hates.
We need to expose false prophets and teachers and public people who are leading others astray, there must be good evidence of their lies, after all they are public and destroying the faith of many, this is not the same as forbidden gossip.
Ephesians 5:10-12 "…10 Test and prove what pleases the Lord. 11 Have no fellowship with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. 12 For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret.…"
It is proper to expose false teachers and the gossiper, that people would avoid those who lead others into lies.
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