Gossip: telling a secret to one person at a time that is not yours to tell.

Are you trustworthy in keeping a confidence?  When you are told anything (whether someone has asked you to keep it confidential or not), do you treat it as confidential?

Why shouldn’t you and I tell what others have passed along to us?  Won’t it look like we know something which others do not?  Do we set ourselves up to seem to be in on an inner circle of knowledge?

Why shouldn’t you and I tell what we know to others?
1- it becomes gossip

2- we may not know all the facts – we have heard only one “side”

3- we cannot discern if all we have been told is true

4- we may be spreading a rumor based on a fact but not on the whole truth

5- we lose our credibility with the person who has entrusted us with their confidentiality

6- we open up gossip about the persons involved in the confidentiality

Three men were invited by Jesus to go to a mountain to pray…Peter, John and James.  While they were there, these three disciples saw the transfiguration of Jesus…they saw the glory and majesty of Messiah!  They saw who Jesus is from a viewpoint of eternity!
(Luke 9:28-35)

The voice of God was heard to say: “This is My Son, My Chosen One; listen to Him!”
(NASB Luke 9:35)

As Jesus and these three men were headed down the mountain Jesus commanded them:
(NASB Matthew 17:9; Mark 9:9) “Tell the vision to no one until the Son of Man has risen from the dead.”

And they did not.  They kept the confidentiality of what they saw, what they experienced and what they heard.

What an example Peter, John and James gives us to follow in our every day lives; to keep confidentialities.  Jesus commanded them…to not tell anyone…what is He commanding you to do today with that tidbit of information you are aching to tell another?