Gossip

• Hebrew: Ragan – backbiter, slanderer, whisperer, one who murmurs against
• Greek: Phluaros – tattler, person who utters silly things, garrulous, babbler

Proverbs 16:28
A perverse person stirs up conflict, and a gossip separates close friends.

Proverbs 18:8, 26:22
The words of a gossip are like choice morsels; they go down to the inmost parts.

Proverbs 26:20
Without wood a fire goes out; without a gossip a quarrel dies down.

1 Timothy 5:13
…they (young women) get into the habit of being idle and going about from house to house. And not only do they become idlers, but also busybodies who talk nonsense, saying things they ought not to.

Slander

• Greek: Blasphemia – slander, detraction, speech injurious to another’s good name

Ephesians 4:31
Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.

James 4:11
Don’t bad-mouth each other, friends. It’s God’s Word, his Message, his Royal Rule, that takes a beating in that kind of talk. You’re supposed to be honoring the Message, not writing graffiti all over it. (The Message)

Romans 1:29-31
They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.

Grow Up

1 Peter 1:21,22; 2:1,2
Through [Christ] you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God. Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart… Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.

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