• Gossip is a refuge for the insecure.
  • Gossip is the language of a jealous heart.
  • Gossip springs from a heart deficient in love for and trust in God.
  • Gossip reveals the bitter roots of resentment and pride.
  • Gossip promotes a slow spiritual death-by-suffocation.
  • Gossip spiritually impoverishes a church.
  • Gossip never has a reason good enough to justify itself.
  • Gossip makes you an enemy of your brother or sister.
  • Gossip loves to throw doubt and suspicion on another person, often only because of jealousy.
  • Gossip is self-serving, validating wrong and unrepentant attitudes of heart.
  • Gossip destroys trust, destroys relationships, destroys unity.
  • A gossiper will claim forgiveness and grace, simultaneously withholding forgiveness and grace from the person who is the subject of their gossip.
  • A gossiper easily finds reasons to justify their gossip–and can even make it sound righteous.
  • No single piece of gossip has ever made anything, anyone, or any church better.
  • God does not agree with gossip, not ever. But, the devil does…

So why, why, why, do so many in the church think there is nothing wrong with it? Why do people justify their use of it, minimize its damage and then, on Sunday, stand and worship in the same space as the people they gossip about?