So, Do You Gossip?

Gossip 
-noun
Idle talk or rumor, esp. about the personal or private affairs of others: the endless gossip about Hollywood stars.
-verb
To talk idly, esp. about the affairs of others; go about tattling

Is it Gossip if I tell my roommate a story about our mutual friend?

A story about an unknown or irrelevant friend?

'News' about a celebrity?

What if the story is about something embarrassing my friend did, and we laugh about it?

Perhaps the story is about sinful decisions a girl made, and we pridefully criticize and condemn her?

Consider the story is about my friend hurting me, and my roommate is now 'on my side'?

Or if the story is about someone's conflict, and she counsels me in how to handle it?

What if it's just a fun story, and you can't wait to tell her?

When does talk become Gossip and Gossip become talk?

Our words hold great power and weight.  They have the ability to build-up as well as the strength to tear-down.  In Paul's letter to the Ephesians he commands, "Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear."  We must choose our words wisely to prevent destructive and deadening talk from coming out of our mouths.  Among other things, this includes slander and gossip.  Furthermore, we are commanded to talk only in a manner that encourages, edifies, and blesses those who hear.  Our words have weight because they effect those who hear them - and we will be held accountable for the effects of our words on others.

Perhaps I need to be much more cautious when I talk about the lives and affairs of others.  However, a conviction is never meant to be shallow, for our sin is never shallow but deep within our hearts.  Therefore, I must confess that I gossip not because I cannot contain my mouth, but because my heart is sinful and utterly depraved.  "Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks" (Matthew 12:34).  It is not my mouth I must repent of, but the sin in my heart that leads to gossip.

On the topic of 'Gossip' John Piper writes:

The New Testament warns against gossiping. The Greek word translated “gossip” means whisper or whisperer. In other words, the focus is not on the falsehood of the word but on the fact that it needs to be surreptitious. It is not open and candid and forthright. It has darkness about it. It does not operate in the light of love. It is not aiming at healing. It strokes the ego’s desire to be seen as right without playing by the rules of love.  "For I fear that perhaps when I come I may find...that perhaps there may be quarreling, jealousy, anger, hostility, slander, gossip, conceit, and disorder" (2 Corinthians 12:20). 

It is the darkness in our hearts that leads to the outpouring of Gossip from our mouths.  This is a deep rooted issue with immediate and far reaching effects.

Is this a sin that we don't take seriously enough?

Childlike Faith

Junior year I took a religion class called "Jesus and the Gospels" which was a study of the "contradictions" and similarities of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John.  Our professor lectured about history, scholarly research, and doubt... a painful drone of information taken from a worldview opposed to the Godly inspiration of the Scriptures.  As I would sit through class I would doodle "I just want to love Jesus!" in the margins of my notes.  Partially I was only joking, but another part of my heart and soul was pleading for the beauty of childlike faith in Jesus.  In Matthew 10:15 Jesus says, "Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”  

Sept 2006, my second month walking with Jesus, I attended Greek LIFE for the first time.  I wrote in my notes that night:

I felt an over-whelming power of love for God through the prayers and words at Greek LIFE... I felt on fire with everyone's glowing love for God.  I am alive with anticipation of our future meetings, Bible studies, and out-reaches.  Thank you Lord for helping me find such an amazing group of individuals and for bringing us all together tonight to celebrate our love for you.  Your love has pierced my heart, and I pray that you may continue to fill me with faith and love.  Amen.

October 2006, my third month walking with Jesus, I attended REVERB (now called Cru) for the first time.  Reflecting on that night I wrote:

I went to REVERB last night with Allie, Kelly, and Shannon for the first time, it was AMAZING :)  A student spoke about finding God during Fall Retreat after a period of confusion and personal anguish.  He cried over his need to find God in his life, and it made me want to cry thinking about how much Stephanie, and now Allie, have guided and inspired me to find God in my life.  If they hadn't reached out to me I might now have found Christianity at this time in my life.  That idea, that the words and encouragement of these two women have made such an amazing difference in my life, inspires me to grow in my faith and share it with others.  By the time REVERB ended I felt overwhelmed with passion and excitement.  I could feel the love of God, and the joy that His love has brought every person in that room with me.  It reminded me all over again how blessed I am to be in a growing relationship with God.

November 2006, my forth month walking with Jesus, reflecting on Fuzzie Fellowship (my sorority Bible study) I wrote:

It's really hard for me to listen to these girl's uncertainties and questions and not know how to respond.  I can feel my faith burning inside of me but I feel dumbfounded and inadequate to explain God's glory.... It's all making me think two different things.  First, that I need to have faith, and remember to put my trust in God.  I feel like I'm trying too hard to do things on my own, and I can't do it alone.  I can't do it without trusting God to guide me.  But, on the other hand, it's making me feel like I'm blind in my faith because I don't question like these girls do... I don't know if I need to ask more questions.  If I can't answer someone else's questions then I obviously have some of my own, whether I realize it or not.  Lord, please give me strength and show me the ways to find these questions and answers.

As I've continued to walk with Jesus I've sought out many of these questions and answers.  My mini library is clear proof that I refuse to have blind faith.  But have I fled from the childlike faith that Jesus calls us to?  As David Powlison says, "Human beings instinctively oscillate between two sinful extremes."  Although I tend to 'stick' on the objective, theological side I do sometimes swing towards that subjective, feelings based (blind; "I just want to love Jesus!") side of faith.  Children are certainly not snoody scholars, but they are also not blind.  They are inquisitive, yet trusting, as they joyfully explore within the protection and guidance of their parents.  The Holy Spirit and the Word of God has set me free to live in this third way.  This third, childlike way neither denies feelings nor stands on them alone.  It is the path of walking with Jesus, knowing Him more intimately, and trusting Him more deeply, all by faith.

A Conceptual Framework

There are significant parallels between counseling, discipling, and parenting.  Although my job primarily calls me to disciple younger women I find that I daily practice counseling and I occasionally wonder if I've (perhaps wrongly?) wandering into the land of parenting as well.  As I consider, Lord willing, the ministry of Christian counseling for my future I have sought a greater understanding of counseling.  Parenting will come with time, again, if the Lord wills, but within this topic there is no rush. 

As I have read and discussed the topic of counseling I have gleaned a great depth of knowledge from David Powlison.  In Powlison's book Seeing With New Eyes he elaborates upon the conceptual - a view of people and problems - in the first book of his series addressing Biblical counseling.  Powlison writes:

Concepts are the first and defining ingredient in any system of counseling.  Every theory defines its version of human nature and the dynamics of human motivation.  Every theory defines or assumes an ideal of human functioning by which problems and named and solutions prescribed: right and wrong, value and stigma, true and false, good and bad, sound and defective, healthy and pathological, solution and problem.

One cannot begin the process of counseling without first narrating through and defining their understanding of mankind.  As Powlison notes, "part of knowing any person well is learning what he or she typically lives for - the pattern of desires."  A great deal of counseling and discipling begins with understanding their desires!  "But naming what you want is the easy part.  The harder part is this: how should you now interpret what you've identified?"  Being able so ask questions, listen, and understand a person is only the first step in counseling (initiating intentionally helpful conversations), but we must be guided by God and good teaching as we tackle interpretation.  Our interpretation will have everything to do with our conceptual framework of human nature and motivation.  And only once desires are correctly interpreted can one move towards transformation, reconciliation, and healing.

As I counsel, disciple, and perhaps parent I seek to invite people to an inner transformation of mind, heart, motive, will, identity, and emotions.  Without a clear goal I am left to the dangerous vulnerability of leading younger women towards haphazard and directionless transformation.  Therefore, my conceptual framework is of most importance as I minister to younger women.

A last word from Powlison:

Souls are curred, but they also sicken in new ways.  Souls always need more curring.  In the counseling context, you often witness such ambiguities.  The positive effects of good, true, and beautiful counsel coexist - uneasily, you hope - with the negative effective of counsel that is bad, untrue, and deformed.  

Let us who shepherd and counsel do it well!

I Thank God for Good Books and Amazing Pastors

A Look Inside Mohler's Study:

Al Mohler - Study Video from Together for the Gospel (T4G) on Vimeo.
(I was in Mohler's study last Fall - it REALLY is amazing!!!  I pray my future husband has such a study one day...)

Ohhh how badly I want to attend T4G 2010!  Featuring Mark Dever, Ligon Duncan, C.J. Mahaney, and Albert Mohler with Thabiti Anyabwile, John MacArthur, John Piper, and R.C. Sproul,  in Louisville, KY April 13-15th.  Words fall short of my desire to attend this conference!

One Great Reason

“Every government, every war, every plague, every bit of persecution, everything that has ever occurred in every corner of the world exists for one reason alone – God’s great gospel. It pushes and drives everything. Do you know how the gospel left Jerusalem? Stephen was martyred. Do you know how Christianity got here? The Puritans were being persecuted. So they hopped on a boat and came over. Everything is about what God is doing. This is what you’re caught up in. This is what’s happening. We’re right in the thick of it. This is the story of creation. There is no other story. Every other story is a footnote in this story. And if you go back and look at it historically, you can find how it pushed, played and exalted this story.”

– Matt Chandler, Pastor, The Village Church

Loving the Church

Are there right and wrong reasons to love the church?

Joshua Harris answers YES in Wrong Reasons to Love the Church:

Do you love the church? Romans 12:10 tells Christians to "Love one another with brotherly affection."

The affection and love we're to have for fellow-Christians is to be based on the work of Jesus Christ for us. It's not about elitism, it's not because Christians are better than anyone else, it certainly isn't because Christians are necessarily more lovable. We love the church because we love the Savior who redeemed the church.

Read the rest by Joshua Harris.

Unbound Without Love

To believe in a powerful, sovereign God is misery if we do not also see that He is a loving, merciful God.  In Paul's letter to the church at Colossae he exhorts them to "put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony" (3:14).  There is a "unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (a state of reconciliation and love)" which unites all believers to one another and to Christ.  Paul further addresses the Ephesians, "And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God" (Ephesians 5:2).  We walk with Christ by walking in love, but until we see Christ's direction as love we will be unable to follow him thus. 

Without love we are unbound.  Unbound from each other and unbound from Christ.  We depart from the body and we walk unfamiliar from Christ.  Not literally, for it is God's love that saves us and keeps us, but relationally, emotionally, and conditionally we are wandering stray and unbound without love.  So to know God as a powerful and sovereign God, but to forget that He is a loving God hinders us from walking near Him.  We might fearfully tiptoe under His lordship, knowing that His hand has great might.  But we cannot joyfully worship Him aside from resting in His love and mercy.  Just cognitively knowing of God's love without putting it on and savoring it will do no good.  We must learn the intimacy of our God.  We must know God as loving and merciful or will shall find ourselves miserable and unbound.