Speaker 1: Welcome to lat Subject podcast. Our mission at Vladimiry Subject
Ministries is to reach the world globally and disciple them digitally.
Let's dive into this episode.
Speaker 2: They I want to talk about something that destroys more
relationships churches and ministries than almost anything else. It's not adultery,
it's not theft, and it's not even a false doctrine.
Speaker 3: I'm talking about gossip.
Speaker 2: Gossip is one of the most tolerated sins in the church,
yet the Book of Proverbs speaks very strongly against them
Proverbs eighteen eight. It says the words of a tail
bearer are like tasty trifles, and they go down into
the inmost body. In other words, gossip feels sweet when
we hear it. It does satisfy our curiosity, it entertains
our minds, and sometimes actually makes us feel very important.
Speaker 3: But Solomon says that those.
Speaker 2: Words go deep into the heart, and they actually poison
us and poison our relationships. Today, I want to show
you what gossip actually is. What does the Bible say
about it? So what is gossip According to the Book
of Proverbs. The Hebrew word that is used in the
Book of Proverbs for gossip or tail bearer is this
word that describes a whisperer, a slenderer, somebody who spreads rumors,
and somebody who secretly carries stories from a person to
a person. So a tailbearer or a gossiper is someone
who passes negative information about someone who is not present,
not to help them, not to heal a situation, but
to actually just spread it. Solomon describes a person who
is quietly carrying these stories to damage others, and he's
spreading them like a messenger delivering poison. What does the
gossip do according to the Bible Now Proverbs eleven thirteen,
it says a tailbearer reveals secrets, but he who is
of a faithful spirit conceals a matter. A trustworthy person
will protect confidential information. A gossip exposes which should not
be exposed what should be covered. Proverbs sixteen twenty eight
talks about a perverse man sow's strife, and a whisperer.
A gossipers separates the best of friends.
Speaker 3: That's crazy.
Speaker 2: Gossip destroys relationships that used to be strong, where people
used to be close. Send gossip there and there goes.
Proverbs seventeen nine says he who covers a transgression seeks love.
But he who repeats a matter separates friends, meaning love
covers mistakes. Now this doesn't mean that we ignore mistakes,
but there's a covering that happens, whereas gossip repeats them
exposes them in a way that actually separates good friends.
The scripture says in Proverbs twenty nineteen, he who goes
about as a tail bearer feel secrets. Therefore, do not
associate with him who flatters with his lips. So Solomon
warns that gossipers are a dangerous company Proverbs twenty six
to twenty. Where there is no wood, the fire goes out, yes,
And when there is no tail bearer a gossiper, strife seizes.
So gossip fuels conflict the same way wood fuels fire.
Speaker 3: That's crazy.
Speaker 2: Proverbs twenty six twenty one says a charcoal is to
burning coals, and wood to fire. So is contentious men
to kindle strife, meaning some people keep drama alive by
spreading stories and lies. The words of a tailbearer I
mentioned already in the beginning of this video are like
tasty trifles, but they will go down into your inmost body,
meaning gossip is attractive to listen to, but it's extremely
poisonous to the soul. Here are the signs you might
be gossiping without realizing. The first one is you talk
about someone instead of talking to them, Instead of resolving
this issue directly with the person, the story begins to
travel from a person to a person, and the person
that it travels through is you. Secondly, you're sharing information
that is not yours to share. If someone trusted you
with something personal and you repeat it, your gossiping. Number
three is conversation damages someone's reputation. So even if the
story is true, by you repeating it unnecessarily causes someone's
reputation to be tarnished, and that is a form of gossip.
Number four is you feel excited when you share negative
information about someone. Now, the proverb says, it's like sweet food.
It feels enjoyable, but it's extremely destructive. It's bad for
your stomach, it's bad for your relationships, it's bad for
your mental health.
Speaker 3: Number five is you would not say.
Speaker 2: Exactly the same thing if that person would have been
standing there, if their presence would have stopped the conversation.
Often what you're talking about them is actually gossip. Now
you may say a lied, But what about if I
am confining in a friend in the pastor and I'm
getting help.
Speaker 3: That's different.
Speaker 2: So what is the difference between gossip and seeking help?
When you seek help, you're seeking help, not drama. For example,
you're saying, Hey, I'm struggling to forgive someone. Can you
pray with me? That's different than you're spreading confidential information
and talking bad about someone.
Speaker 3: Number two.
Speaker 2: Difference between gossip and seeking help is the person you're
talking to is wise and trusted. You're speaking to a pastor,
a counselor a friend or a mature friend or a mentor,
so you're not just telling it to somebody who will
be listening to it for sympathy. Number three, the goal
is for you to get guidance. The goal is for
you to get some deliverance or some healing, accountability and prayer.
The goal isn't for you to just get sympathy, meaning
you're looking for guidance, Hey, what should I do?
Speaker 3: Am I wrong? How should I behave in this area?
Speaker 2: Number four, The difference in gossip and seeking help is
that you're protecting the person's dignity by not sharing unnecessary
details the moment you feel like you need to share
all the details. Many times what happens is you expose
the other person. You can share, even with the person
you're looking for help certain parts about a situation that
you're going through without throwing that person under the bus.
Speaker 3: Number five is.
Speaker 2: You're willing to talk to the person you have a
problem with directly. So let's say you've got an issue
with this person, you go to your mentor and you say, hey,
I got this issue, and biblically speaking, according to Matthew
chapter eighteen, for the reconciliation to happen, no amount of
going to your pastor or to your mentor makes it
easier for you or takes away from your responsibility to
actually go to that person that you have a problem with.
Healthy sharing with your mentor has to lead to Matthew
eighteen reconciliation where you have to go and have a
difficult conversation perhaps with a difficult person, which is going
to potentially resolve this problem and you can have even
a closer relationship. That's why it's dangerous when you have
went and spread all these things about them, and then
you went to them, you clarified misconceptions.
Speaker 3: You went to them, you worked out everything.
Speaker 2: And now you left impression of this person everybody's mind
that there's such a terrible person, when in reality, there
was a misunderstanding or an issue was between you and them,
and you can resolve it by having a conversation with them.
Gossip damages so many relationships. I cannot tell you how
dangerous it is, and being at the front row of
how gossip destroys relationships and hurts the church, I can
tell you that it's probably one of the most dangerous
things that is happening in churches and teams today. Here
are seven signs that you're surrounded by a gossiping culture
in the church, in the ministry, or in the team.
Number one is private conversations constantly or revolve around other
people instead of vision, growth, strategy, and holy spirit. Number
two is confidential information spreads quickly, and things shared privately
somehow become public knowledge. You go for a confession, you
talk to somebody, get some help, and next thing you know,
it becomes a sermon illustration, and next thing you know,
other people are talking about it. And so that's when
you know the culture is gossip culture. It is not
godly culture. Number three is people regularly criticize leaders and
members behind their backs rather than addressing them direct. Gossip
culture does not like to go and talk to the person.
It thrives on talking about the person. So you want
to kill the gossip culture. Teach people to go to
people and talk to them instead of talk about them.
Number four is drama seems to follow certain people everywhere
they go. And some people they're just like their gift
is drama. Everywhere they come, there's like peace and tranquility, quietness,
until they come. They love to stir up drama. And
sometimes those drama queens or drama kings, they're in the
ministries and we tolerate them. We put some bubble wrap
around them because you know, they're relative to some pastor,
or they are relative to this high donor or whatever,
and we don't address it and we don't cause those
people to repad Number five is people enjoy negative news
about others, and they enjoy news about people's mistakes. And
these topics are topics of excitement. People are not excited
about intercession, they're not excited about prayer, they're not excited
about what God is doing that excited about the latest
spill of what somebody else has done. Number six is
conversations suddenly change when certain people that we talk about
walk into the room. That's when you know the culture
is not talking to the people, it's talking about people.
And number seven is division quietly grows. Friendships always get
fractured because we repeat stories that create mistrust. Like Proverbs
says Whisperer separates close friends. A gossip culture does not
have friends. A gossip culture does not have peace. A
gossip culture people don't grow. Iron doesn't sharpen iron. The
gossip culture does not honor the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 3: It's a sin. So how to stop gossip?
Speaker 2: One of the most powerful ways to stop gossip is
very simple, refuse to participate. Proverbs twenty six twenty says this,
Where there is no wood, the fire goes out. Gossip
needs an audience. When there's no audience, the fire dies.
Sometimes the most spiritual response is saying this, let's pray
for this person instead right now, let's stop this person's
going through this, let's pray for them. Or did you
talk to this person yet? No, Well, I don't think
we should be talking about this. Why because your problems
with them? You gotta go to them. When gossip finds
no listener, it loses its power. So stop the spread
of it. By not giving it your ear, you're not
giving it a wood to the fire. Gossip dies. Now,
what happens if you're the one gossiping? What happens if
you're the one that is doing this. So the good news,
even if you realize that you've been gossiping, God gives
us a way to deal with it. The first thing
is you got to repent before God. Ask the Lord
to forgive you for misusing your words. Because the Bible
teaches that your tongue has the power of life and death,
and you've been using it for death.
Speaker 3: You separate friendships, you.
Speaker 2: Allow division, and you allow Actually you're not guarding people
who gave you confidential information, and what you're doing is wrong.
Secondly is you have to stop repeating those stories immediately.
Do not continue spreading what you've already shared. Like stop that,
Jesus tells the woman cut an active adulty. He's like,
don't do that again. I don't judge you, but don't
do that again. Number three is you have to correct
what you can, if possibly you can clarify the situation
with the people you spoke so that the damage does
not continue. Sometimes you actually have to go to the
people that you gossip and you say, I'm so sorry
I should have not shared that. And the people that
you gossip about you have to tell them that say,
I am sorry. I actually spread some things about you
that were not truthful. I am so sorry. Would you
forgive me? I remember this happened to me once. I'm
pretty sure to happen more than once. But this incident,
you know, comes out. Because I'm a pastor, sometimes I
hear private information from people, and sometimes people tell me,
don't tell this to anyone and so and I have
done my best to keep things very confidential to the
best of my ability as a pastor, because this is
how my trust is built with people. But this particular time,
one young lady who works for me, she was pregnant,
and I remember that she told me, I think, in
the presence of my wife, you know, hey, I'm pregnant,
and don't tell this to anybody. And I was like, yeah, absolutely,
praise God. You know, we're so happy that's pregnant. And
of course we won't tell anybody. This is your news
to tell and The next day or two days later,
I was in the family meeting and somehow a conversation
came up about this person and I just blabbed it,
and I just, of course I said this, guys, make
sure you don't tell anybody, you know, which is when
you have to do that. When you just promise you
won't tell anybody to this person, now you're telling other
people not to tell anybody, like that's gossip. And my
family didn't pay much attention, and I was like, oh, yeah,
that's okay, that's great. Next morning, I am doing my
devotions and I hear like the Holy Spirit brings that up.
He said, you promised to her that you will not
tell anybody until she announces that news, and now you
just went and told your family yesterday. And so I
texted her immediately and I said, I am so sorry.
I told my family about this news, and I feel
so embarrassed.
Speaker 3: I am so sorry.
Speaker 2: After that, I can tell you right away that I
became very very conscious. First of all, when somebody comes
and tells me and says, hey, can you not tell anybody,
I say, don't tell me that. I do not want
to know. I want to know less things. I want
to keep less secrets. Secondly, if you're entrusted me with
some secret, I want to guard it. And so it's
very important that we correct what we can. Number four,
guard your tongue going forward. Ask the Holy Spirit to
help you to pause before speaking and examine your motives.
And number five, learn to replace gossip with prayer. Instead
of discussing somebody else's weakness, learn to bring those things
before God in prayer. So as we wrap this up,
the Book of Problems teaches us that the wise people
don't go spreading gossip.
Speaker 3: They stop them.
Speaker 2: So love covers, faithfulness protects trust, and wisdom knows when
conversations should end. So next time somebody brings you a
story about another person, remember Solomon's wisdom. The words of
a tall bearer are like tasty trifles is they go
down into your body. Gossip may taste sweet at the moment,
but it poisons your heart. It will destroy your friendships.
Choose wisdom, choose love. Choose to guard your tongue, because
your words have power to destroy friendships or to protect them.
Speaker 3: Protect your friendships.
Speaker 2: And if you have a problem with somebody, go and
talk to them. Lean into awkward conversations, have difficult conversations
with difficult people, so that you don't fit the criteria
of a gossiper. Thank you for watching this video and
share this video with somebody, maybe a small group or
your church, so that we all can get better at
eliminating gossip from our culture. I hope that this video
helped you to grow in your walk with God. Imagine
multiplying that impact through the world.
Speaker 3: Through this ministry.
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our online school, created over sixty reading plans that over
two million people have completed already, and published resources in
eighteen languages. But our heart is bigger than content. We're
feeding orphans, building homes, and partnering with missionaries on the
frontlines of the gospel.
Speaker 3: Would you consider becoming a monthly partner.
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Click on the link below to become a part of
this movement.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to this episode. I believe that
you were encouraged, strengthened, and convicted. If this was a
blessing to you, would you help and share with your
friends as well as maybe a social media and leave
a review on the podcast where you are consuming this content.
Speaker 3: It will help us a lot.
Speaker 1: If God puts on your heart to become a partner
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can become a partner there. God bless and remember you
will raise to deliver.