Proverbs 26:20 Gossip
Food for Thought
An all-creatures.org Guide to Kingdom Living

By Marni Montanez

Proverbs 26:20 Complete Jewish Bible

If there’s no wood, the fire goes out;  if nobody gossips, contention stops.

Read that verse carefully….what it is saying, is that something can’t continue if no one participates. Gossip needs willing participants to keep it alive.  Participants are those who actively listen to or actively share gossip.

Gossip means casual or unconstrained conversation or reports about other people, typically involving details that are not confirmed as being true.

Even if the information is true, what you do with it could be harmful.  It exists to destroy, not only the one it is talking against, but also it hurts those who carry it’s poisonous message from person to person; each time getting more and more tangled up in its web of deception.

People gossip to gain importance.  They know the critical information and so therefore must be in the know….  They are like leeches that latch on to gossip and revisit it over and over; feeding off its false power and it doesn’t matter who or what it’s about as long as they are the center of attention. Gossipers thrive on the drama that gossip creates. They play the victim and stir up people.   Are you a gossiper?  

The only approval you will get for gossiping is the enemies perverted approval.  God is against gossip. He knows the unalterable destruction it will cause.

A gossip cannot be trusted because they have no boundaries concerning who or what they will gossip about.  If you feel you have been gossiping way too much, one way of dealing with this is to fill your thoughts with the word of God.  God’s word is life giving and true. If our mind is filled with God’s word then nothing else will fit.  

Lining yourself up with gossip in any way, is to line yourself up with the plans of Satan.

The enemy wants you to willingly take the bait; Gossip is like toxic garbage you allow to be brought into your soul.  You are literally causing emotional and spiritual toxins to invade your being and sharing the information with another is to vomit all over them with your garbage and poison.  This will surely feel slimy and cause oppression.  

Challenge:  Stay focused in the word.  Let it fill your mind so that when you are in conversation with a gossip you won’t make room for their words.   Remember gossip serves only one purpose….destruction.  It is alright to tell people you are really trying not to gossip because it’s wrong.  

God bless

Marni

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The purpose of this series is to encourage people to live as loving, compassionate, and peacemaking children of God: Jesus tells us to pray, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." (Matthew 6:10) God tells us through Micah (6:8), "He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God." And we know from Revelation 21:4 that there will be no more mourning, or crying, or pain, or death. Thus, Christian living requires us to set the standards of these conditions here on earth for our fellow human beings, and for the other animals, as a witness to the rest of the world. To do otherwise is not Christian.