GOSSIPING
For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies.
—II Thess. 3:11
2073 “G” For Gossip
R. G. LeTourneau was for many years an outstanding Christian businessman—heading a company which manufactured large earthmoving equipment. He once remarked, “We used to make a scraper known as “Model G.” One day somebody asked our salesman what the “G” stood for. The man, who was pretty quick on the trigger, immediately replied, “I’ll tell you. The “G” stands for gossip because like a talebearer this machine moves a lot of dirt and moves it fast!””
2074 Dog With 5 Legs?
Abraham Lincoln had a favorite riddle he used to put to his colleagues. It went like this: “If a man were to call the tail of a dog a leg, how many legs would the dog have?”
“Five,” was the usual reply.
“Wrong,” Lincoln would say with a homely smile. “The dog still has four legs. Calling the tail a leg doesn’t make it one.”
—C. R. Anthony
2075 Nosing For News In Trashcans
Washington (AP)—A 27-year-old reporter says he is looking for news in the US secretary of state’s trash.
“We’ve run into a couple of interesting things so far,” said Jay Gurley, who collected five bags of Henry A. Kissinger’s trash early Tuesday and is now going through the debris.
Gurley said he works for the National Enquirer, a weekly published in Lantana, Florida.
2076 Phone Call Broadcast
A trick played by magnetic storms is to cause a conversation on a telephone line to jump to a radio line nearby and be broadcast without the knowledge of the two persons talking. This occurred in New York a short time ago when such a connection caused an intimate phone call to be heard on a coast-to-coast program.
2077 Classed With Murder And Stealing
In a small village in which there was only one church that almost every member of the community attended, one woman made life difficult, often, by her constant prying into the affairs of her neighbors. One day when the rector of the church was trying to show the woman the harm she was doing, she said: “Oh well, just prying into my neighbors’ affairs isn’t as bad as what Mrs. So and So does. She gets drunk.” “Madam,” replied the rector, “Your sin is classed with murder, and with stealing, in God’s Word.”
—Mrs. J. Shields
2078 Hole In The Pocket
F. W. Boreham tells of the happy soul whose home is the Other End of Nowhere. He has two pockets. One has a hole in it and the other is carefully watched that no hole develops in it. Every thing that he hears of a hurtful nature—insult, cutting remark, gossip, unclean suggestion, or any such thing—he writes on a piece of paper and sticks it into his pocket with the hole. Everything which he hears that is kind, true, and helpful, he writes on a piece of paper and puts it in the pocket without the hole.
At night he turns out all that is in the pocket without the hole, goes over all that he had put into it during the day, and thoroughly enjoys all the good things that have come his way that day.
Then he sticks his hand into the pocket with the hole and finds nothing there, so he laughs and rejoices that there are no evil things to rehearse. Too many of us reverse the other, putting the evil things in the pocket without the hole so that we can mull over them again and again, and the good things in the pocket with the hole so that they are quickly forgotten. Paul’s way was: “whatsoever things are true … think on these things.”
—Mrs. Clarence Jones
2079 When Lincoln Did As He Pleased
During the administration of Lincoln, a delegation from a western state called upon him with a written protest against a certain appointment. In particular the paper had a list of specific objections against a Senator Baker, a long-time and beloved friend of the president. The objections were definite reflections on Baker’s character.
Holding the paper in his hand, Lincoln asked with calm dignity: “This is my paper which you have given me?” When they assured him that it was, he asked further: “To do with as I please?” “Certainly, Mr. President,” replied the spokesman.
Lincoln leaned over to the fireplace, laid the paper on the hot coals, turned to the group and said: “Good day, gentlemen.”
2080 Luther Never Divulged Confession
Even though he had been a priest for twenty-eight years, Martin Luther, who fell away from the priesthood and the Catholic faith, never revealed anything he had heard in confession.
He left the Church, married a nun, preached and wrote against the Catholic Church and everyone and everything in it, but he never told a single thing he had heard in confession.
—Arthur Tonne
2081 Not Your Business, Lady
A lady once made a complaint to Frederick the Great, King of Russia: “Your Majesty,” she said, “my husband treats me badly.” “That is not my business,” replied the king. “But he speaks ill of you.” “That,” replied he, “is none of your business.”
—Clerical Library
2082 Enquire … Search … Ask … Ascertain
Dr. Mclean tells how he was rebuked and humbled on a certain occasion when he repeated a grave matter he had heard to a friend. His friend opened his Bible to Deuteronomy 13:14 and read: “If thou shalt hear say … then shalt thou enquire, and make search, and ask diligently; and behold, if it be truth, and the thing certain that such abomination is wrought among you. … ”
Then his friend turned quietly to him and asked: “Have you, dear brother, enquired? Have you “made search?”
“Did you “ask diligently?”
“Did you try and find out if the story is true?
“And is the thing “certain?”
“Is it certain that “such abomination is wrought among you?””
Dr. Mclean says he could only acknowledge regretfully that he had not fulfilled any one condition and was repeating the tale from hearsay without making the slightest attempt to act thereon in a Scriptural way.
—Watchman-Examiner
2083 Six Articles Of Wesley’s Covenant
In 1752 a group of men, including John Wesley, who were nicknamed Methodist, signed a covenant which every man might hang on his study wall. The six articles of the solemn agreement follow:
1. That we will not listen or willingly inquire after ill concerning one another;
2. That, if we do hear any ill of each other, we will not be forward to believe it;
3. That as soon as possible we will communicate what we hear by speaking or writing to the person concerned;
4. That until we have done this, we will not write or speak a syllable of it to any other person;
5. That neither will we mention it, after we have done this, to any other person;
6. That we will not make any exception to any of these rules unless we think ourselves absolutely obliged in conference.
—Evangelistic Illustration
2084 Epigram On Gossiping
• The only time people dislike gossip is when you gossip about them.
—Will Rogers
• So live that you wouldn’t be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip.
• It isn’t the people who tell all they know that cause most of the trouble in this world, it’s the ones who tell more.
• One nice thing about egotists: they don’t talk about other people.
—Good Housekeeping
• Tale-bearing emits a threefold poison; for it injures the teller, the hearer and the person concerning whom the tale is told.
—Spurgeon
• A four-year-old boy decided that he’d make an attempt at reciting the prayer which he had heard in church. “And forgive us our trashbaskets,” he asked, “as we forgive those who trashbasket against us.”
• Seen on a highway billboard in Indiana: “He who throws dirt loses ground.”
• I never like people to tell me secrets, for I cannot keep them.
—Spurgeon
2085 Booting Capital’s Cars
A news report says that Washington, D.C., is placing heavy wheel locks on illegally parked cars. The locks are called “Denver boots” after the city that introduced them in 1948.
Painted a vivid yellow, the boot weighs about 20 lbs and is a two-part unit that can be clamped on the front wheel of any car in less than two minutes. Once the boot is locked on, the car is made immobile.
In 1976, nearly 8,000 cars were “booted” on Washington streets. This was forced on the city government because of the great number of people, many of which were diplomats who simply ignored parking tickets.
2086 Scouting For Whom?
In Surrey, England, the Boy Scouts, called a halt to the daily good deed for two Cub Scouts. “They had been warning drivers to watch out for a police radar speed trap down the road,” explained Cub Chief Edgar Lea.
See also: Criticisms ; Murmuring ; Rumors ; Matt. 12:6.