Articles
Coping with Life 31 – Victims of Gossip
Coping with Life 31 – Victims of Gossip
Mike Willis
Many of us have been the victims of gossip and slander, perhaps even libel. There are temptations that come when one’s name is slandered. From childhood, I was told the old adage, “Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt you.” The adage is not true. Lying words do hurt people, sometimes causing them to lose their job, suffer financial loss, and emotional stress. There are legitimate ways to respond to slander and there are sinful ways to cope with it.
Here is the legitimate way: CONFRONT THE GOSSIP. Gossip is just like any other sin. The Lord does not teach His people to sweep them under the rug and forget them; rather, sin of any kind needs to be confronted and the sinner called upon to repent. Jesus said, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector” (Matt. 18:15-17). When one confronts a gossip, he probably should take someone to witness what occurs because he already knows that tendency of gossips is to distort the truth or blatantly lie about it.
Here are the temptations that victims of gossip face: (1) RETALIATION. There is a temptation to do to others as they have done to you. Paul wrote, “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord’” (Rom. 12:19).
(2) There is a temptation to LET IT FESTER IN ONE’S HEART. It can lead to attitudes of resentment, bitterness, anger, etc. This is the reason Paul added to what he wrote in v. 19: “To the contrary, ‘if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.’ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Rom. 12:20-21). Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also” (Matt. 5:38-39). These are some of the hardest commandments to obey but, like all of Jesus’s commandments, it is for our own good.
(3) There is a temptation to be UNFORGIVING. Hopefully, the confronting of a person with his sins will bring him to repentance, in which case the victim should be willing to forgive. Jesus gave the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant to address the temptation to be unforgiving (Matt. 18:21-35) . Have you ever said something about someone else that was gossip and slander? Have you ever had to apologize and ask forgiveness? I suppose that, at some time or the other, most all of us have been guilty. Therefore, we should be willing to forgive others because that is what we want others to do for us when we commit this sin (Matt. 7:12). And, let us never forget that our own forgiveness depends upon our willingness to forgive those who sin against us, which is the point of the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant.
I suspect that all of us have had to face the situation described in this short article, from one side or the other, the guilty gossip or the victim of the gossip. Learning to cope with these situations is a useful life skill.
