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Think Like a Christian,
Talk Like a Christian, Pt. 2:
Talebearing
Presenter: Larry Kirkpatrick
Location: Mentone Seventh-day Adventist Church, California, USA
Delivery: 2006-12-02 21:09Z
Publication: LastGenerationTheology.org 2006-12-02 21:09Z
Type: Sermon
URL: http://www.lastgenerationtheology.org/lgt/doc/mis/txtx/kir-talk2.php
Before going anywhere today, let us recall what we learned last Sabbath. We then addressed three items having to do with attitude. We learned that we must maintain humility, to keep it clear to ourselves that we are not to fill the role of the Holy Spirit for others, and that we must beware judging the thoughts and motives of others, which we are incapable of knowing or measuring.
Gossip
This sabbath we begin to address the issue of speech. In particular, today we define the concept of “gossip.” The word itself started in churches. It comes from late Old English and is a combination of two words, first, “god,” as in godmother or godfather, one who is a baptismal sponsor, one related to another in God. The other word is from “sibb,” as in “sibling.” “Sibb” means one who is a relative. So the words come together into godsibb, with the passage of time arriving as our word, “gossip.”
Record of the practice itself, goes back to the earliest writer in the Bible, Moses, who found himself repeatedly targeted for the unfair and ungodly thought and speech of others.
Ellen White also helps us to understand what gossip is made out of. “Gossipers and news-carriers are a terrible curse to neighborhoods and churches. Two-thirds of all the church trials arise from this source” (A Solemn Appeal, p. 162). Here is another from her pen:
We think with horror of the cannibal who feasts on the still warm and trembling flesh of his victim; but are the results of even this practice more terrible than are the agony and ruin caused by misrepresenting motive, blackening reputation, dissecting character? Let the children, and the youth as well, learn what God says about these things: ‘Death and life are in the power of the tongue.’ The spirit of gossip and talebearing is one of Satan’s special agencies to sow discord and strife, to separate friends, and to undermine the faith of many in the truthfulness of our positions (The Adventist Home, pp. 440, 441).
Gossip need not necessarily be false information. It may be quite accurate “news” that comes to you. And yet, it is not just a curse, but a terrible one. And often it is untrue. We are urged to think of gossip and talebearing as being, in essence, worse than cannibalism.
Further Definition of Terms
The phenomenon may be further subdivided into two categories. One we shall call “destructive talk.” We take our cue from Leviticus 19:16:
Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people.
This text forbids the communication of most kinds of derogatory or damaging information concerning others, or talk promoting unjust negativity about a given person or persons.
And what is “separation talk”? Our cue comes from Proverbs 6:12, 14, 16, 19:
A wicked man walketh with a froward mouth... Frowardness is in his heart, he deviseth mischief continually; he soweth discord... These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him... and [seventh] he that soweth discord among brethren (Proverbs 6:12, 14, 16, 19).
“Separation talk” is speech leading one to be angry with another, alienating people from each other. Sometimes separation talk is the mere repeating of destructive talk. These are closely related and yet different in certain ways which we will later address.
We will also keep in mind the possible recipients of destructive talk and of separation talk. Possible subjects of such talk are others, and again, ourselves. It is quite possible to speak destructive talk about yourself to yourself.
In contrast, we will offer help towards accomplishing the opposite kinds of speech. Instead of destructive and separating talk, each of us needs to learn how to offer constructive and uniting talk.
Talebearing
This was an interesting item from the Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary for Leviticus 19:
The rabbis taught that there were three sins that remove a man from this world and deprive him of happiness in the next—idolatry, incest, and murder—but that slander is worse than these in that it it kills three persons at once: the slanderer, the slandered, and the listener (Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 1, p. 789).
If you study Leviticus 19 as a Christian who respects God’s law, you will be very interested. For example, it begins with the two positively worded commandments (Honor Father and Mother, and the Sabbath commandment), and you will see most of the Ten Commandments mentioned in the chapter (19:2 fifth commandment and fourth commandment, 19:4 second commandment, 19:11 eighth commandment, 19:12 third commandment, 19:13 eighth commandment again, etc).
You will also notice that the chapter contains major ideas that Jesus used to outline the Ten Commandments, namely, that the first commandments have to do with man in relation to God and also that we are to love others as ourselves (19:18). The chapter even repeats from the very beginning of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1) “I am the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt.”
Mingled with the Ten are other sections expanding on the commandments (5-10 give your offerings freely and correctly, and when you harvest leave some fruit in the field for the poor. The verses in 13-34a expand on do not steal, have respect for others made in God’s image, treat others with fairness, maintain justice for the oppressed, devotion of orchards, the forbidding of pagan worship practices and of submission to false religious authorities, the forbidding of sexual sins, command to treat sabbath and sanctuary with respect, and commanding respect for the aged and the stranger.
At the beginning of all these commands, God presents what we may call the image imperative: “Ye shall be holy: for I the Lord your God am holy” (Leviticus 19:2). How we treat ourselves, how we treat others, is all built up from the special purpose of God in His creation of man. Because (although He is infinite while we are only finite) we are analogs to God, our behavior is to be comparable to His behavior.
Now let’s look closely at this keynote verse in our study: Leviticus 19:16. The reading is, “Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people.” Let’s work on the ideas contained here one by one.
Thou Shalt Not
This idea is given as a direct, unambiguous command. When the Bible includes the phrase “thou shalt not,” little is left vague about the divine intention. Something is being explicitly identified, ruled-out, and prohibited. Many here today joined our names to this denomination on the basis of another unambiguous command, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8). Do you know what I would like to hear? I would like someone to come to me someday and say, “Pastor, I have been learning about your church, and do you know what impresses me? Everything here is truth. The members hold all of God’s Word in respect. Why, every Seventh-day Adventist I’ve met here refuses even to gossip or speak slanderously of others. I plan on joining this church.”
Go Up and Down
What are we not to do? Not to go up and down among God’s people offering destructive or separation speech. Going up and down is a reference to the misuse of God-given energies. God gave us life so how will we use it? He commissioned us as a people, put the banner of Present Truth, the Third Angel’s Message, in our hands to live and give to others. But what? Too often rather than copying Christ we are found copying Satan.
Remember the first two chapters of the book of Job? God asked Satan what he had been doing, and his reply was that he had been “going to and fro in the earth, and walking up and down in it” (Job 1:7; 2:2). Satan was full of activity, but his work was the work of opposition, of sowing discord, of creating walls and separating people from each other and from their Maker. His was the self-chosen work of manipulating the facts, presenting them in twisted light, telling half-truths, arousing anger. He uttered destructive speech with the purpose of destruction. Were he human, he would be found today on the telephone, on the computer, employing every mode of communication. He—subtly—would be bending the facts, telling stories, placing his own emphases upon certain points and minimising others.
Among Thy People
At the last part of this sentence, we have where the talebearer is at work: among your people. Who are your people? One of you sent me these lines a few days ago: “It is amazing that in many congregations people get the idea that they do not need the rest of the body; they can function on their own; they have their own abilities, their own ministry, and they can do things quite apart from others. They see themselves as pro golfers; golfers are by nature independent. A golf tournament is a struggle of independent egos pitted against each other. The golfers all rely on their own abilities to try to beat out the other man.”
Now consider this attitude. The church is not the place where we should come to view ourselves as functioning on our own, not needing the rest of the body, or, at least, not needing some with whom we may feel we disagree. Christianity and church are not about independence. We are dependent on God and He has shown us that we are dependent on each other as well. Heaven wants to lead us so that we may become free from sin, and this is a personal choice that every man and woman must make over and over again to get to that goal. But Heaven has placed us in each other’s pathway not only to learn from Him but to teach each other. Were church just about listening to a sermon every week and returning one’s offering, church could be a television show and a 1-800 telephone number.
A church cannot function as a television program. A church is a congregation. And we think of ideas like these:
A man that hath friends must show himself friendly (Proverbs 18:24).
Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend (Proverbs 27:17).
Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep (Romans 12:15).
In our separation from one another we are separated from Christ. We want to press together. Oh, how many times, when I have seemed to be in the presence of God and holy angels, I have heard the angel voice saying, ‘Press together, press together, press together. Do not let Satan cast his hellish shadow between brethren. Press together; in unity there is strength’ (Selected Messages, vol. 2, p. 374).
When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up (1 Chronicles 27:10).
Do you know that all around us, even in our very midst, there are people separated from their birth family, people from homes where love has failed or circumstances have led to a lack of closeness between family members, or where divorce has darkened lives. There are people right here who long for this church to fill the place of a family for themselves. There are people who feel as if they are outside, separate, and alone. Will the Lord take them up? It will be seen through the members of the Lord’s family.
If we are family, we will demonstrate it by seeking to repair breeches between each other, even breeches we ourselves may not feel we have caused. We’ll be first to reach out even to those we may not feel like reaching out to right now.
Talebearing acts against all this. In the midst of what should be a sea of reconciliation, talebearing among God’s people is like adding water to oil or oil to water. It is the antithesis of what the church is about. It must not happen among thy people, and neither you nor I can allow ourselves to be its source.
Now let’s return to the key phrase itself. Not one of us is to go up and down “as a talebearer.” What are these tales?
First, they are not about doctrine. Throughout the Bible the idea of maintaining sound doctrine is emphasized (Proverbs 4:2; Isaiah 28:9; Matthew 7:28; 22:33; Mark 1:22; 11:18; Luke 4:32; John 7:16; Acts 2:42; 5:28; 13:12; Romans 6:17; 16:17; 1 Corinthians 14:6; Ephesians 4:14; 1 Timothy 1:3, 10; 4:6, 13, 16; 5:17; 6:1, 3; 2 Timothy 3:16; 4:3; Titus 1:9; 2:1, 7, 10; 2 John 10; Revelation 2:15). Doctrinal disputes should be addressed in a fair-minded spirit and there should be an endeavor to contain the dispute to the appropriate parties. But let us never become so confused that we think that to urge sound doctrine and to oppose error somehow makes one a talebearer. If someone is teaching false doctrine in the church, and another person seeks to address the false teaching, he is in no way violating Leviticus 19:16. If, on the other hand, in addressing the doctrinal question, he impugns the character of another, or descends into ad hominum, argument against the man, then it does become a violation of Heaven’s “thou shalt not.”
But what are these tales about? Sometimes they are imagined motivations. People were continually imagining motivations in Moses that were not in his heart. There were a group of agitators who kept asking him and each other, Why did Moses cause us to leave Egypt? Was it because he was seeking position, that he wanted to be our leader (Exodus 2:14; Numbers 16:13)? Was it to kill us (Exodus 14:11; Numbers 16:13)? See how the imagined motivations varied all the way across the spectrum.
Another form talebearing takes is in misguided attempts to turn issues of personal preference or petty disputes into rallying causes. To use Moses for our example again, his sister Miriam along with Aaron tried to turn Moses’ marrying an Ethiopian woman into such a tale (Numbers 12:1). So Moses married an Ethiopian woman. Isn’t that within his prerogative? Miriam was struck with leprosy and excluded from the camp for a week (Numbers 12:1-16).
Another magnification on the petty dispute theme is when individuals or groups seek to gather political power within a congregation. Korah, Dathan, and Abiram sought to gain this power. God intervened and destroyed them all (Numbers 16:1-40). Then there were the 12 spies, 10 of which sought to counteract God’s express will in the matter of invading Canaan. Again, all the unfaithful were destroyed (Numbers 14:36, 37).
When it comes to Paul in the New Testament, we find persistent attempts to undermine his apostolic authority. Word went out that Paul was strong in his letters but unimpressive in person (2 Corinthians 10:10). There were also false reports about what he was teaching (Romans 3:8). These were attempts to undermine his spiritual authority. But the reports about his personal presence were apparently false. Just ask Peter (Galatians 2:11-14). The reports concerning his teachings misrepresented them. It was talebearing among God’s people.
The Beginnings of Evil Speaking
If we are going to do away with the sin of gossiping, destructive and separation talk, evilspeaking, it will help us to understand how it begins. “The sin of evilspeaking begins with the cherishing of evil thoughts” (Testimonies, vol. 5, p. 177).
Notice the order:
- evil thoughts.
- cherishing.
- evilspeaking.
This pattern is like that found in James 1:14, 15:
Every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
Here, the pattern is:
- being drawn away.
- conception.
- sin.
- (resulting at last in) death.
Returning again to the Ellen White quote, here is the whole paragraph:
The sin of evilspeaking begins with the cherishing of evil thoughts. Guile includes impurity in all its forms. An impure thought tolerated, an unholy desire cherished, and the soul is contaminated, its integrity compromised. ‘Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.’ If we would not commit sin, we must shun its very beginnings. Every emotion and desire must be held in subjection to reason and conscience. Every unholy thought must be instantly repelled. To your closet, followers of Christ. Pray in faith and with all the heart. Satan is watching to ensnare your feet. You must have help from above if you would escape his devices.
Notice the pairing of words and ideas. Evilspeaking begins with the cherishing of evil thoughts. Here is the key: “an impure thought tolerated, an unholy desire cherished...” We must be careful and realize when we are in a moment of decision. The choice is like when you get some potatos into your mouth that are too hot. Immediately you realize that they are too hot and that you are at the point of burning your mouth. Now in the moment, you have two choices: spit the potatos out or not. If you spit them out quickly enough you can keep yourself from being burned.
Notice also how we have the words “contaminated” juxtaposed with “compromised.” Obviously then, if thoughts of sin are not tolerated or desires cherished, then one will not have been contaminated by them, one will not have been compromised by them. We are told the very thing we need to do. Hold emotion and desire in subjection to reason and conscience. Perhaps it will be helpful to think of the three stages as
- pre-ownership.
- transaction.
- ownership.
Remember, “While Satan can solicit, he cannot compel to sin... Unless Christ should consent to temptation, He could not be overcome.... The tempter can never compel us to do evil. He cannot control minds unless they are yielded to his control. The will must consent, faith must let go its hold upon Christ, before Satan can exercise his power upon us” (The Desire of Ages, p. 125). Satan can solicit but he cannot compel. The verbs in this quotation are to consent, to yield, to let go. This must happen “before Satan can exercise his power upon us.” When he solicits then, we must reject, when he bids for control we must refuse to yield, when he seeks to loosen our grip, faith must hold on to Christ even more firmly.
When Satan solicits you with the thought, for you, the situation is one of pre-ownership. You do not own the thought, you are not responsible for the thought, you are not guilty for the thought. The thought does not represent a choice by you to vote in favor of selfishness. You have not yet voted by your actions.
Next there is the possibility of a transaction. You have opportunity to consider the thought. A transaction is being proposed. You have before you an opportunity to choose to tolerate the thought, to cherish the emotion, or to hold on by faith and to refuse to consent. If you choose to resist and cry out to heaven for the power of God, you will succeed and the matter is ended with your vote in favor of God’s unselfish kingdom.
If you choose, however, to let go your hold by faith, to consent, to embrace, then you have chosen to endorse Satan’s proffered transaction. Then you pass from the transaction phase to the ownership phase. Then compromised and contaminated are words that apply to what has happened.
Conclusion
Besides the importance of maintaining humility and the related attitudes before mentioned, today we worked on what constitutes gossip, destructive speech, and separation speech. In reviewing talebearing we found that in many ways it represents the antithisis of the gospel. Finally, we reviewed the process by which such thinking develops and contaminates the soul. The next step, of course, is expression of these thoughts in speech. May God help us to learn to be careful how we think, so that in no case do our thoughts resemble those of Satan more than Christ.
Next week we delve deeper and offer practical helps so that we can continue to learn to talk like Christians. LGT
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