Gossip!

 

 Office clipart

Gossip, to most of us, if not all of us, has a negative connotation. No one wants to be known as a gossip, with whom no one dares share secrets.

Lately I have been wondering if I am a gossip and what it really means to gossip. I often say, I don't want to gossip when I tell something. Then I find myself being questioned by God through my conscious, "Is it true that you do not want to gossip?" And I stop and wonder if what I just shared or said was gossiping.

It seems the line between retelling something, telling how one feels and gossiping is so fine and uncertain that most of us aren't sure whether we are gossiping or not.

Today I went to the dictionary and found gossip defined in these ways:

1. Rumor or talk of a personal, sensational, or intimate nature.

2. A person who habitually spreads intimate or private rumors or facts.

3. Trivial, chatty talk or writing.

Hmm. . . interesting. So gossip can just be a chatty talk about nothing- that sounds harmless enough. But it can also be hurtful, and the spreading of information better left a secret.

When I went to God's word to find some verses on gossip I found :

 Proverbs 20:19 He who goes about as a slanderer reveals secrets. Therefore do not associate with a gossip. 

When I looked up what "gossip" meant in Hebrew (the original language) I discovered. 

Definition

to be spacious, be open, be wide to be simple, entice, deceive, persuade to be deceived, be gullible  Hmm. . . what might this mean? That when we persuade others to believe what we are telling about a situation or person, we are gossiping? That when we believe everything someone else tells us about another that we are listening to gossip? Could it also mean that revealing too much information is also gossip? What do you think, where in the line between telling something and gossiping? Is there a line? Is it ok to tell how you feel about something to a friend, if it involves another person? Or is that gossip? Are you a gossip? How do you feel about that?