A Christian Perspective on Gossip

I believe the best definition of gossip that I have found is this: gossip is saying something, even if it is true, with the intent to cause personal harm. By that definition we are all guilty.

The family member that is considered to be a dead beat
Co-worker is just plain lazy
Person at church just gets on my nerves

7 All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, 8 but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness. 10 Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. 11 Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? 12 My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water. James 3:7-12

One of the best evidences of our spiritual condition is the words that we use and how we speak to and about other people. James again uses several word pictures here to describe this aspect of our spiritual lives and does so with two different sets of words.

The first set that James uses here is blessing and cursing. To say that these words are exact opposites is an understatement. The word bless simply means to cause to prosper or to bring happiness and as Christians shouldn't our words build others up and bring help to them. The word curse means to bring evil upon and when we use our words to hurt we are really doing nothing but bringing evil on others.

The second set of words that James uses are the spring and the fig tree. These two images are really saying the same essential message that we can only produce one type of word from our lives. Just as a spring will produce one kind of water or a tree one kind of fruit, our tongues will produce one kind of effect. The truth is that we make the choice of what kind of impact our words will have on those around us.

The things that we say are not a product of our mouths, they are a product of our spiritual condition. If we want to have spiritual growth, the tongue is one of the first things that Christ wants to have under His influence.