Are There Benefits to Gossip?

There’s nothing so delicious as the taste of gossip! It melts in your mouth~ Proverbs 18:8 CEV

Like most Mothers with kids living at home, I have settled into a predictable morning routine. It goes like this: I wake up, stumble to the kitchen, pour a cup of coffee and fight to appear engaged while the youngest child chatters incessantly.

Following is more coffee, a lot more chatter, and a valiant effort on my part to ensure the lunches packed are at least marginally nourishing. I herd the kids out the door, savor the quiet, drink more coffee, read the Bible while eating breakfast, drink more coffee and do a quick workout while I catch up on what’s going on in the world.     

Yesterday, I finished the last of the coffee, climbed on the exercise bike and became so absorbed in working off my caffeine buzz that I was only somewhat tuned in to the news program. That is, until a chirpy anchorwoman declared in an insanely happy tone that a recent study has determined gossip is actually good for us.

WHAT?

I must confess that for one fleeting instant I was elated. For an inquisitive (nosy) person such as myself this story was without question the best news ever. I could cave to my baser instincts, listen to gossip and improve my health all at the same time. Just as I was preparing to call my best friend to tell her the good news I remembered something about the perils of buying into worldly wisdom so I decided to dig a little deeper. I found the related article and read it carefully. The author spoke glowingly of the benefits of gossip. According to the author, gossip will:

Tell you how to behave on your job  

Help you to understand and improve your social standing

Inform members of a group which behaviors are socially acceptable

Possibly lead to self-improvement

Reading about the alleged benefits of a behavior God calls a sin (Romans 1:29) made me wonder what exactly God would say if we could get His unfiltered opinion of that article. I bet it would be interesting. He wasn’t available for a quote, so I turned to the book of Proverbs instead. Proverbs cautions us on the more negative aspects of gossip, including:   

Nobody actually likes a gossip- Proverbs 17:28, Proverbs 20:19  

 Everyone enjoys listening to a juicy piece of gossip, but nobody wants to be a victim of the rumor mill. We all know intuitively that a gossip cannot be trusted. That’s why few gossips have many close friends. Smart people avoid a gossip like the plague once they realize anyone who will talk with you about another person will talk about you to other people.

Gossip is rarely completely true- Proverbs 26:20-22

 Gossip is notoriously unreliable because every gossiper is also an embellisher. It’s part of what makes gossip so insidious. The frame of the story may be true but the details are almost always made out to be more interesting and salacious than they really are.

Gossip is the number one cause of family disunity-Proverbs 6:19, Proverbs 16:28

At the root of every unhappy family is at least one person who repeats unkind words and circulates gossip. Sometimes this person is another family member; sometimes it’s a “friend” of the family who likes to stir the pot and keep everyone at odds with one another. Beware of any “friend” who wants to know too much of your family business. They don’t have your best interests at heart.

Gossip ruins the gossiper- Proverbs 13:3, Proverbs 16:28

There is something about spreading stories and sharing personal information that eventually twists a person and destroys their character. If a person gossips for long enough they will develop an insatiable appetite for more and more information to share with others. This happens because the sharing of information makes them feel powerful and important. If there is no actual information to share, they will enhance stories that are true and even lie in order to continue feeling important.

All supposed benefits aside, there are undoubtedly less destructive ways to learn about our social standing, understand the world around us, and improve our social standing and ourselves. Consuming gossip is like eating a deep-fried Twinkie: it feels good while we do it, but the effects are ugly. Passing along gossip is like sprinkling arsenic on chocolate cupcakes. It’s a pleasant way to destroy people.

 

A gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy person keeps a secret~ Proverbs 11:13 NIV