Recently a new issue was brought to my attention. That issuse was the fact the here, news, whether true or false, spreads like wild fire or faster. This can lead to, yes you guessed it, gossip. Whats the point? you may ask, I'm glad you did. The point is to get information. It was once said, I think, that in the absence of truth, one will be created. This means that if you don't understand something or it isn't explained most people will make up an answer. Take for instance you know this guy, and you hear he is dating. When you confront him about this though, it turns out he was just walking through Wal-Mart with his cousin that was visiting, but because someone saw him walking through Wal-Mart with a girl they automatically assumed that it was a special someone. This leads directly to hasty generalizations, and then on to worse things. For those of you who aren't in Freshman Bible, as Mr. Huff has been telling us that, when you hear something the first thing you want to do is credify the source. This means that just because you heard it from your best friend does not mean that it is true. Verbal communication, for those of you who haven't played the telephone game, isn't always reliable. Take the phrase "I like sheep" for instance and put it through about 30 people playing the telephone game and you'll get the phrase "Osama Bin Laden's sister is ugly" (that did happen once) that is only one example of why verbal communication is not always reliable. Is verbal communication ever reliable? I'm glad you asked, Yes, indeed it is. Although don't expect what your friend heard from his mom who heard it from her co-worker who heard it from his son who heard it from his friend who heard it from his cousin to be true. What am I getting at? I'm oh so glad that you asked. Gossip most of the time is unreliable, false, and pointless, yet we still do it because to some people, having false information is better than no information. Then why do we still do it? That is a question that you will have to answer, because we are each accountable, and should not throw around information, unchecked and unchallenged. Moral of the story is this: Gossip is unreliable, and proves to be false most of the time, but most people keep it because they think it's better than nothing, so people keep feeding false information, and it keeps growing, and thats how rumors get started. So from this we can say that checking your sources + checking the information - gossip = good information. There is some simple math for you to think about.
"It's not that I'm afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens." - Woody Allen
3 comments:
You said:
Gossip most of the time is unreliable, false, and pointless... Then why do we still do it?
I think the good ol' apostle James has something to say about that. He makes the analogy that we can tame wild stallions, turn huge ships, even tame every type of animal....but "no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison."
Read the whole passage. it is very helpful.
Apart from the work of God's grace in our hearts, the tongue is a destroying menace that will wreak unimaginable havoc in our lives. Don't trust your tongue to go unchecked.
Be afraid...be very afraid.
vc
nice post, jigger. it is definitely something that we all struggle with. we often don't think about the fact that what we say might eventually hurt someone. (check out proverbs 25:18)
Unfortunately this is something that is learned/enjoyed at a very early age. I often feel that I spend half of my day dealing with he said/she said problems that education in the core areas is often left by the wayside. No matter how many James 3 bulletin boards I put up (I currently have two) and no matter how many times I "preach" during Bible class (since I can't technically preach I have to pontificate somewhere!) it doesn't seem to get through their heads. Then I find myself doing the same thing and again realize the strength of that deadly poison.
Oh if only we could quench that fire and tame the tongue!
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