I Need a New Word - Describing Gossip

My thesaurus doesn’t quite help me enough here. I’m trying to come up with a word that describes how I really feel about gossip. “Hate” seems too pretty. “Abhor” leaves too much doubt. “Loathe” sounds too much like “love,” and I wouldn’t want to be misunderstood.

Do you know what I'm saying? What more harmful or destructive thing can there be to someone’s name or reputation – or to the witness of the church - than dragging his or her name through the vile mud pile of gossip?

It’s like a child playing with a book of matches. Of course he didn’t mean to burn the house down, but that’s what happens when you play with matches. If you light a match and nobody blows it out, it’s going to cause a fire and someone’s going to get burned.

Gossip works the same way. Of course you didn’t mean to cause such harm. You didn’t mean to destroy anyone’s reputation. You didn’t mean to stain their name. You didn’t mean to divide the workplace, your family or God’s church. You didn’t mean to burn down the house. Unless you did. But when you light the match by passing on potentially destructive information (whether it’s true or not makes absolutely no difference), and nobody blows it out – instead the flame is kindled and waved hotter with every recurring telling of the situation – then somebody’s going to get burned.

If you've ever been burned by gossip, my heart goes out to you. I trust you'll seek not for revenge but reconciliation. Please don't harbor bitterness and rage, but follow the biblical principles toward forgiveness and mercy. A needed blog for another time.

This is how Satan works. Remember, his mission is to steal, to kill and destroy (John 10:10). You’d better believe he wants nothing more than to destroy the house of God – to burn it down and take out as many followers of Christ as possible. And doesn’t he just love to give non-Christians a disdain for those who do call themselves “Christians” but who dish out the gossip with the best of them? We give him that foothold when we talk about others in a hurtful way. We open up the doors and invite him in when we pass along the latest, juiciest news we have on someone.

I ask you, dear friend, How’s your speech? If you find that you often (or ever) begin your conversations with, “Did you hear about Joe…?” or, “Guess what happened at the Jones’ last night…,” or, “You’ll never believe what I heard about Paula…,” then you need to think about whose camp you’re in.

Maybe the better question is, How’s your heart? The Bible says that “out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks” (Mt. 12:34). If you’re caught up in dishing out or relishing in the latest unpleasantries, then don’t just button up your lips - go get a heart scan! Let the Lord do a thorough evaluation on the condition of your heart. If necessary, let Him perform the surgery required to get rid of the old one and give you a new one. Let Him put His Spirit in your heart and do the work He desires through you.

I’m urging you, Christian reader, for the sake of Christ to put an end to all gossip! If we’re to live worthy of the calling we’ve received in Christ, then “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen” (Eph. 4:29).

I want you to hate all sin (not those who commit them) – including gossip (not those who gossip). And let me know if you’ve found a better word or coined a new term for expressing such revolsion for the sin of gossip. I might need to use it again sometime.