Gossip? Me?

They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Romans 1:29-31

The Bible is clear, gossip is wickedness and evil. As Christians we are to guard our tongues and keep from repeating gossip. But what about listening to gossip? Sometimes as Christians we think listening is okay as long as we don't repeat what we've heard.

Proverbs 20:19 says to "avoid a man who talks too much" in regard to gossip. So it is clear, we should not just guard our mouths but our ears as well. Not only that, but Proberbs 18:8 and 26:22 repeat the same warning, "The words of a gossip are like choice morsels; they go down to a man's inmost parts." What we hear goes in our "inmost parts." Or in the words of computer programming, "Garbage in, garbage out." We need to guard what goes in us, to protect what comes out of us.

Think you've got this one down? Meet me over at Titus 2 in Action , where I am a guest contributor every other Wednesday, to see areas where you might need improvement.