Resisting Gossip by Matthew C. Mitchell

Author:Matthew C. Mitchell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CLC Publications

PART 3

RESPONDING TO GOSSIP

Rescue me, O LORD, from evil men; protect me from men of violence, who devise evil plans in their hearts and stir up war every day. They make their tongues as sharp as a serpent’s; the poison of vipers is on their lips.

Psalm 140:1–3

7

Responding in Faith

You will be gossiped about. If it has not happened yet, get ready, because someday you will find yourself in the crosshairs of the sin of gossip. My friend “William” did.

William is a Christian who owns rental property and tries to be just and merciful in managing it. But he had one tenant, “Nicholas,” who refused to pay his rent on time and who let the balance of unpaid debt pile up. Nicholas also claimed to be a Christian, but instead of apologizing for his debt and paying up, he went through the community attacking William’s character. Word slowly trickled back to William of what Nicholas had been saying about him to business owners, neighbors and friends. It hurt William a lot.

What would you do if you were in William’s shoes? Are you ready to respond to gossip when you are its target?

Sadly, most of the time you will not know that you are a target of someone’s harmful words. Perniciously, gossip is done behind our backs, when we are not looking, when we are not listening and when we are not present. So what do you do if, like William, you get wind of what is being said about you?

Before we can learn how to relate to the other people who have become involved in these situations, especially the ones who have perpetrated the wrong against us, we need to start with how we can relate to God when we find ourselves the target of gossip.

Songs of Experience

The Psalms are the richest quarry to mine in the Bible for learning how to righteously survive being the victim of other people’s sins. The Psalms are songs of experience; the one we are about to read relates the experience of being attacked, chased, hated, slandered and of just about every other way of being sinned against! King David, especially, lived most of his life under attack, and his prayers, provided to us as songs in Scripture, give us patterns to practice in our own lives today.1

Psalm 140 is one of David’s songs of experience. In it David sings about a time when he lived as a target of gossip. As you read it, take careful note of how he talks to God:

Rescue me, O LORD, from evil men; protect me from men of violence, who devise evil plans in their hearts and stir up war every day. They make their tongues as sharp as a serpent’s; the poison of vipers is on their lips. “Selah”

Keep me, O LORD, from the hands of the wicked; protect me from men of violence who plan to trip my feet. Proud men have hidden a snare for me; they have spread out the cords of their net and have set traps for me along my path.

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