The Poison Of Gossip

He who covers a transgression seeks love, But he who repeats a matter separates friends.

Proverbs 17:9

For many Christians, the indoor sport of choice is gossip. Only we don’t call it gossip—we say we are “sharing prayer requests.” The book of Proverbs speaks volumes about the poison that can be spread by the tongue: “He who repeats a matter separates friends” (17:9; see also 16:27–28; 18:8; 26:18–22).

A story is told of a woman who learned this lesson the hard way. She gossiped extensively about another woman, only to discover that all she had been repeating was not true. She sought the advice of her pastor on how to make things right. He told her to take a feather pillow, cut a hole in it, and go around town sprinkling the feathers everywhere she went.

The next day he told her to go back through town and collect each of the tiny feathers. The woman realized that she could no more retract the damage done by her words than she could collect thousands of tiny feathers scattered by the wind.