GOSSIP – SLANDERER

The slanderer tries to injure someone’s reputation or character by false & defamatory statements. The action or CRIME of making false spoken statements damaging to a person’s reputation.

People love to talk about other people, especially if it’s bad. Hollywood makes a huge dollar from gossip. People pay for dirt. Be honest, if the news was always positive, would you read it or listen to it? Most of us wouldn’t – including myself. God hates the news media because he hates liars & malicious talking. They spread dung & attempt to destroy people’s lives. When a crime is committed, the news media looks for every detail to bash them including bashing their relatives. They are scum.

Many years ago there was a woman in Kentucky who got involved with a cult. They were troubled teenagers who killed one of the members in a ritual-style killing. The girl’s father was a lawyer. The news media actually tried to make a connection between the girl’s crime & Billy Graham saying that the father had once worked as a lawyer 10 years earlier for Dr. Graham. That’s one crazy example of the media & their whack methods.

The media digs under each rock to find filth about someone. These folks are evil & hated by God. Are you in this category? You may not have the same access as the media has to dig up all the information on a person but do you take the information you do have & spread your filth to others to destroy someone? Have you? Did you ask forgiveness from this person whose life you sought to murder? Yes I said murder. You attempted to murder their character and name.

People are hypocrites. They love to tear people down. It somehow gives them a sense of power over that person & builds themselves up – so they think. Ephesians 4:30-31 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. You grieve His Spirit by your slander & destruction.

Years ago Christians were accused of cannibalism, incest, atheism, hatred of human race, licentious orgies. Imagine the damage these accusations brought to our family in Christ.

Pro 16:27-28 An ungodly man digs up evil, And it is on his lips like a burning fire. A perverse man sows strife, And a whisperer separates the best of friends.

Galatians 5:15 If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.

One definition says it means to ‘slink about’, speak injuriously, ‘throw over’. Below I’ve posted from LOGOS6. This is very VERY eye-opening definition of slander.

This sin, of which the tongue is the organ (Pr 18:21, Ja 3:8, 9), springs from the heart, as the seat of inner life (Mt 12:34, 35; 15:19, Mk 7:21, Lk 6:45). It is mental emotional hate (1 P 2:1); but even truth may be circulated from motives of malice, and falsehood may be told simply from a perverse pleasure in lying. Against slander and evil-speaking, from which arises much strife (Pr 16:27–30; 30:10), warnings abound in the OT (Ps 34:13, Pr 15:28; 30:32; 24:28) as in the NT (Eph 4:31, Col 3:8, Ja 4:11, 1 P 3:10).  Slander is a sign of moral corruption (Jer 6:28; 9:4, 2 Ti 3:3). As angels abstain from all reviling (2 P 2:11, Jude 8), so proneness to slander is regarded as disqualifying for citizenship in the Hebrew commonwealth (Ps 15:3; 24:4) and for membership or office in the Christian Church (Tit 2:3, 1 Ti 3:11). Instances of slander are recorded (2 S 19:27, Dn 3:8, Neh 6:13, Ezr 4:6) against persons, and even against a land (Nu 13:32; 14:36). Among other forms of persecution to which the pious in Israel were exposed was slander (Ps 31:13; 41:5; 27:12; 35:11, Jer 20:10), from which also the members of the Christian Church (1 P 2:12; 4:4), and especially the apostles, suffered (Ac 19:9; 24:5; 28:22, 2 Co 6:8), even as Christ Himself did (Lk 2:34; Mk 9:39, Mt 11:19), and as He foretold that they would (Mt 5:11, Lk 6:22). Christians are warned to give no occasion for it (Tit 2:8; 3:2, 1 P 3:16), as thereby they may bring discredit on the gospel and the Church (Ro 14:16; cf. Ro 2:24, 2 P 2:2, Tit 2:5, 1 Ti 6:1). When suffering from such slander innocently, they are urged to bear with patience (1 P 3:9; cf. 1 Co 4:12) even as Christ did (1 P 2:23; cf. Mt 27:39, Mk 15:32, Jn 9:28), and even to rejoice therein (1 P 4:14).

False witness is but slander carried into a court of justice, and against this sin the ninth commandment is directed (Ex 20:16; cf. 23:1, Dt 5:20). Its prevalence in the East (Ezr 4:6, Lk 3:14; 19:8) necessitated great severity in punishing it, and in the Pentateuch the law of retaliation is literally enforced regarding it (Dt 19:16–19). To avoid miscarriage of justice, the testimony of one person was not accepted as sufficient by the Jewish law (Nu 35:30, Dt 17:6; 19:15), and this rule was adopted in the Christian Church (2 Co 13:1, 1 Ti 5:19; cf. Mt 18:16). When the charge involved a death sentence, the witnesses had to be first in carrying it out (Dt 17:7; cf. Ac 7:58). Yet false witnesses could be found (Dn 6:24, 1 K 21:10), as against Jesus (Mt 26:59, 60, Mk 14:55–57), Stephen (Ac 6:13), and Paul (Ac 24:13).

The heinousness of slander is shown by the use of the same Gr. word in NT for sins of speech against God and man (Mt 27:39, Lk 23:39; 22:65, Ac 13:45; 18:6; 26:11, 1 Ti 1:20, Tit 3:2, Ja 2:7); by our Lord’s warning about the unpardonable sin (Mt 12:31, Mk 3:28, Lk 12:10); and by the name ὁ διάβολος, given to the spirit of evil, who is represented as playing the part of slanderer against Job (Job 1:9–11), Joshua the high priest (Zec 3:1), and Christians (Rev 12:10).