All This Talk

"For we hear that there are some who walk among you in a disorderly manner, not working at all, but are busybodies."
2 Thessalonians 3:11

Nothing can destroy or divide a church like gossip. Paul knew this. Many times in his letters, he mentions the fact that we are not to be gossips. The fact of fishing for information, and then repeating it, is a form of gossip. The Greek word for "busybodies" means "to meddle." To be nosy. To be all up in somebody's business. To pump people for information, so that you can be "in the know." The root of this problem is basic. It is pride. To know something about you that you didn't think they knew. All of this energy spent fishing for information and talking to others could be spent doing something for the furtherance of the kingdom of God, not the kingdom of man.
In the context of the local church, that is what Paul is saying here. You are not working. Instead you are spending all your time gossiping.

In the book of James, he speaks of the tongue set on fire by hell. The tongue can ignite things and destroy them, which is exactly what the enemy wants. The thing is, people in the church either don't realize this, or ignore it. And that is the tragic thing. We have come to be inebriated over the gathering of information about our fellow man, which consumes time and energy better spent elsewhere.

Beloved, let us, all of us, take care to watch our tongues. No one wants to be guilty of destroying or dividing a church with our gossip. We have taken on a distorted view of gossip in the church, and it needs to be corrected, and the talk needs to stop. I have had people talk to me, in the church, about things which to them I have never spoken. I scratch my head and think, "How did they find out about that?" But then I realize who their friends are, and realize they run in the company of gossipers. How sad. Gossip hurts. It not only hurts the ones being talked about, but it hurts the ones you talk to, and it hurts people's opinions of the gossipers. A gossip is not the most esteemed person in the land. So beloved, let us stop all of this talk, and be about the business of the kingdom. Shalom.