“He who … rules His spirit [is better] than he who takes a city” (Proverbs 16:32b, NKJV).
It’s an old story but one that still brings a chuckle: Three preachers were at a conference, and prompted by a message on “besetting sins,” late one evening the three began to reveal some of their secret flaws. One said that his besetting sin was that he enjoyed an occasional drink. Naturally, he explained, he didn’t like folks in his congregation talking about it so he was quite discreet in his drinking.
The second said that he wasn’t bothered at all with the temptation to drink. He confessed, though, that he too had a besetting sin. He admitted that his was gambling.
The third listened quietly and as they waited for him to admit a besetting sin, he smugly said, “I, too, have a besetting sin.” “Yes,” encouraged the first. “Mine,” he said, “is gossip, and I can hardly wait to get home and to talk about this.”
My daughter says, “Christians don’t gossip; they just share prayer requests.” Right! So how do you respond to those bits of somewhat salacious information which get passed on to you? There are times that I ask, “Do you know this for a fact, or did you just hear someone else say this?”
Rumors or half-truths can be as devastating as a bullet in the dark. I’m thinking of a Methodist pastor whose associate didn’t like him, so the youth pastor wrote a letter accusing the senior pastor of wrongdoing and mailed the letter to the entire membership. And what happened? As church leaders began to investigate, it became apparent that the accusations were totally untrue. The associate admitted to fabricating the story. Nevertheless, people believed the rumor and the damage was done. Within two years the pastor quietly left town. He had become known as the “pastor whose reputation was in question.”
In regard to passing on information that may or may not be true, there are three questions you need to ask.
First: Is it needful? What you say may be completely true. You may well know something about a person which only God and the other individual knows, and God has long since forgiven that person, blotting out the record forever. But you casually mention that failure in a conversation. What you shared has no bearing on the present situation. What you know is completely unnecessary.
Second: Is it kind? In recent years we’ve come to think of absolute frankness as being the equivalent of honesty. While I believe in honesty with all my heart, I also believe in kindness. Criticism is often a blunt expression of what someone already knows. It takes little brilliance to recognize failure or shortcoming, but it takes a great deal of the grace of kindness to withhold the obvious.
Ever hear the expression, “I feel like giving him a piece of my mind?” My late father-in-law used to suggest that some folks must have a good deal more mind than they know what to do with since they’re always giving pieces of it away.
Third question: Is it true? Immanuel Kant, the philosopher, once said, “All that one says may be true, but it’s not necessary to say all that is true.”
Paul says that learning when to speak and what to say is part of maturity. He says that infants are quick to speak their minds but men and women who are mature, “speak the truth in love,” as they grow into Christ who is the head of all things (Ephesians 4:15, KJV).
The next time you are tempted to pass on a choice bit of news, ask: Is it needful? Is it kind? And, Is it true? And you’ll know whether to repeat it or not.
Resource reading: Proverbs 3.
