Gossip is defined as two people talking about a third person who is not present. Malicious gossip is bad for the following reasons:

1.The person is not present to defend himself

2. It is a waste of time. We are often assuming things which may not be fact.

3. Even if we 'quote' the third party, the 'facts' may be nothing but our own interpretation.

4. Therefore, to tell a person what somebody else said about him, can be very misleading. It is hard enough for: two people speaking face to face to understand each other. It is virtually impossible to understand when the information comes from a third party If we want the truth, we must go to the person who originated the statement.

In research, this is referred to as primary vs secondary sources. Secondary sources can be unreliable. When I make a statement, its truthfulness is dependent upon my knowledge of the subject.. When somebody else quotes me, they become a secondary source. If the primary source was bad, the secondary source IS worse. So why waste time getting information from third parties? It is a very inefficient way to learn.

1. I will believe that everything is all right between me and another person, unless that person tells me himself. People may be talking behind my back, but it doesn’t help me to imagine that they are. I will not believe any tale about me, which is reported by a third party.

2.Since the war in heaven ,was pimari1y a war of words (gossip),I will stay away from gossip if I wish to be in God's army, rather than Satan's.

3. Eve partook of the forbidden fruit, because of curiosity. This opened Pandora's box of evil. I don't want to satisfy a person's curiosity if it is will result in the breaking up friendships.

4. Jesus, the Great Physician came to HEAL men's emotional problems, I would like to be part of the healing process, rather than making matters worse.

5. Some people will grill you mercilessly to discover what gossip is going around concerning them. They can almost 'drive you up the wall' in their desire to know. However, Jesus never permitted anyone to drive him into a corner. Neither should we. If one person's distorted opinion of another, is shared with me, and I feed those statements back to the other person, I produce a FURTHER distortion. which can fracture a friendship. Therefore. I do not plan to tell anybody else what a third party has said about THEM. It is bad enough to listen to gossip. But when that gossip is fed back to the person about whom they were speaking, this act becomes totally unforgivable!