by Annagail Lynes

Created on: July 19, 2008

Is it okay to gossip?

My grandmother went to her church's Tuesday morning ladies' Bible study religiously.

When my mother asked her what they studied, she gave my mother the low-down on what members of the church divorced, had babies or married.

Instead of wanting to study the Word of God, my grandmother wanted to ingest the tasty morsels of gossip.

Gossip is popular. Otherwise television programs, such as Entertainment Tonight, The Insider and Access Hollywood wouldn't be needed. Neither would the tabloids and entertainment magazines at the grocery store check-out stands.

People just have to know who is seeing whom, who has gone mental, who is cheating on whom and who is having a baby in Hollywood.

It is our need to know that spurs the gossip industry. It is that same need that has shattered so many young lives in Hollywood. It is that need that has celebrities being chased by the paparazzi twenty-four/seven.

We are all guilty of gossip. Men would like us to think it's a woman thing, but that is not true. Gossip is not discriminatory. It attacks men and women alike.

What is gossip? Anything we hear about someone behind their back is gossip. Anything that we wouldn't say to their face is also gossip.

Most gossip is done in secret at beauty shops, on golf courses, in the board rooms, in churches and in schools.

Anything we have to hide is negative and counter-productive to our health.

Why is gossip so tasty? The Bible calls gossip dainty morsels (Proverbs 18:8 NLT).

I believe it is because we feel that our own lives are boring. Therefore we want to hear or read about the exciting details of other's lives-dead or alive-to live vicariously through them.

The same friends who gossip with us will gossip against us to their other friends. Most gossip is based entirely on rumors and on accounts that are second and third, and maybe even forth-hand.

It is difficult to get a straight story after that many hands have been involved.

Remember the game "Telephone"? We tell one person in the group something, and they tell the next person and that one tells the next. By the time it reaches the last person, the message has been altered.

It is the way with gossip. By the time, it reaches us after going through so many hands, it is revised and void of the original truth.

Why do people gossip? They are curious about other people's lives.
Instead of focusing on their purpose, they are focused on what others are doing. Their attention is on the wrong thing. They must return it to God and the

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