Gossip
This Soviet war poster conveys the message: "Don't chatter! Gossiping borders on treason" (1941). (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Gossip is a serious problem. It is a problem in the home, in the workplace, in the local church and in broader evangelicalism. It is a problem in the blogosphere, in social media, and beyond. In his book Resisting Gossip , Matthew Mitchell defines gossip as “bearing bad news behind someone’s back out of a bad heart” and shows that when the book of Proverbs uses the word “gossip,” it does so in the noun form, not the verb form. In other words, the Bible is concerned less with the words that are spoken and more with the heart and mouth that generate such destruction. Words matter, but they are simply the overflow of the heart. As always, the heart is the heart of the matter. Here, drawn from Mitchell’s book, is a gallery of gossips , five different gossiping people you will meet in life. Gossip #1: The Spy The first kind of gossip, and I kno