When
a close friend or loved one tells you a negative story about someone else, what
is your first reaction? Do you automatically accept their story as true because
the speaker is close to you? Or, do you automatically hold off judgment of the
other person because you know that you’re only hearing one side of the story?
There
are many words that come to mind in relation to one person telling a negative
story about another. Common ones are “gossip”, “slander”, “lying”, “judging”, and
“backbiting”. However, there is a dangerous and divisive habit of allowing
people close to us to get away with any kind of talking about others they
desire, while treating those talked about as if they must be guilty because our
friend or loved one says so.
For
starters, it is an injustice to believe stories are true just because the
storyteller is a friend or loved one, while the storytellee is an unknown,
someone from outside the “group” you and the storyteller are in (church,
family, social club, etc).
The
Bible is very clear that this is an issue of our way of relating to
righteousness. Do we love our favorite people more than we love righteousness,
or do we love righteousness in that way that supersedes our preference for
friends and loved ones for the good of all people?
When
Paul told Timothy to “flee youthful
passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who
call on the Lord from a pure heart,”[1] he
really meant this, that Timothy would set an example in seeking the righteous
way of handling anything, including people close to us telling stories about
people far from us.
Paul
was very clear that Timothy had to do everything without “favoritism or partiality”.[2] He
wrote, “In the presence of God and of
Christ Jesus and of the elect angels I charge you to keep these rules without
prejudging, doing nothing from partiality.”[3]
This
Scripture means two things. First, we are not allowed to express prejudging,
which refers to judging people before testing a story by biblical criteria.[4] Rather
than doing what is righteous and God-honoring, prejudging is the error of
negatively rejecting someone because we have already judged them in a bad way
before we ever hear their side of the story.
Partiality,
or favoritism, refers to playing favorites. While prejudging emphasizes the
negative spin we put on people who are not close to us, partiality speaks of
putting an overly positive spin on anyone who is close to us. Favoritism would
include choosing sides because someone is our favorite person in a dispute. If
there is a conflict between someone I don’t know, and my best friend, I will
choose my best friend just because I am closest to them, not because they have
handled the situation in a righteous, God-honoring way.
In
favoritism and partiality, if there is a conflict between someone in my family,
and someone outside my family, I will favor my family members simply because
they are my family members, rather than find out who is handling the situation
in a righteous, God-honoring way. The same holds true in the church; if we hear
of a conflict between someone in our church, and someone in another church, or someone
in the community, favoritism will automatically take the side of the person in
our church group, rather than find out if anyone involved is handling things in
a righteous, God-honoring way.
A
while back, I watched a news story where the people doing the study wanted to
see what would happen in our present society if different people were caught
doing the same crime. They set up a bicycle in a park where various walkways
intersected, and secured the bike to some object using a lock and chain. They
then had three different young adults act as if they were trying to cut the
chain off with a hack saw and steal the bike.
The
difference between the three people was this: the first was an African-American
young man. The second was a male Caucasian. The third was a very attractive Caucasian
young lady. The difference in the way that many passersby related to these
people was both shocking, and stereotypical.
When
it was the young black-guy trying to cut the chain with the hack saw, people
were irate. They warned him, and threatened him, and took his picture with their
phones, treating him like a criminal, and trying to stop the crime from taking
place. There was no doubt that people wanted to get the criminal busted.
When
it was the young white-guy portraying his efforts to steal the bicycle,
passersby were cautious, attempting to ascertain if the man had any good reason
for what he was doing. There was no urgency to either stop the crime, or get
the thief busted.
When
it was the good-looking young lady, people could not see that she was trying to
steal a bicycle, and some (guys) even went so far as to offer her assistance,
and flirt with her about wishing they could offer her assistance. They didn’t
seem to recognize that a good-looking lady could be committing such a crime,
and needed to be stopped and reported for doing so.
All
of this showed that people treated these complete strangers based on prejudging
and partiality. All three were equally guilty, but their physical differences
determined how they were treated.
We
see this same kind of thing when people from one denomination have a
prejudgment about what people from another denomination are like, and so assume
that a conflict with one of “our kind” against one of “their kind” always means
that “our kind” is right, and “their kind” is wrong. We fall into the same trap
when family members are right, and non-family members are wrong, or best
friends are right and worst enemies are wrong.
The
point is that any kind of prejudgment is condemned by God because God is truth,
he loves truth, and he gives the Church the Spirit of truth to help the church
be true. God says that everything is to be tested so that we never fall into
the trap of choosing between people based on partiality for one side, or
prejudging the other side. It is more important to do what is righteous, no
matter who is involved in a conflict, disagreement, or gossip session, than it is
to hold on to the love of a friend or family member at the price of
accommodating sin.
The
issue is not whether we love the storyteller, the person telling us something
negative about someone else. The issue is whether we love God more. It isn’t
about siding with our enemies instead of our friends, but becoming such friends
with righteousness that we will side with whoever shares this friendship.
The
next time you hear a negative story about someone, watch your heart. If you
find yourself believing the storyteller just because of that person’s
relationship to you, humble yourself before God and ask him to give you
righteous discernment. It is in the best interest of your friend or loved one
to be confronted with any gossip, slander, prejudging, or partiality, before
division occurs where unity in the Spirit could have been maintained.
© 2014 Monte Vigh ~
Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise
noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible,
English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway
Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.)
[1] II Timothy 2:22
[2] The way I first
learned it using the NIV
[3] I Timothy 5:21
[4] Some of the biblical
criteria includes: testing everything, holding off any conclusions until at
least two or three witnesses have verified that someone has sinned, where
verifiable unrepentant sin is proven, making every effort to win the person
over before continuing to spread stories, and treating the gossips,
slanderers, and liars who are close to us with the same discipline as we would
wish for guilty people who are further away from us.
No comments:
Post a Comment