Spurgeon on Gossip

Great quotes from Spurgeon on gossip provided by Justin Taylor ... but more specifically, the sin of "listening to gossip": http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2011/12/26/the-sin-of-listening-to-gossip/

Quote on Gossip

Gossip is what no one claims to like, but everybody enjoys.
-Joseph Conrad

Look inside yourself ... why do you enjoy gossip? What are you feeling when you share it? What sensations come over you? What need are you trying to fulfill? 

Quote on Gossip

Fire and swords are slow engines of destruction, compared to the tongue of a Gossip.
-Richard Steele

A reminder of James 3 ... so powerful is the tongue, so destructive is gossip, it is to be feared, avoided at all cost. And I speak as one who has gossiped and who has been gossiped about ... it destroys both ways.

Quote on Gossip

Anyone who has obeyed nature by transmitting a piece of gossip experiences the explosive relief that accompanies the satisfying of a primary need.
-Primo Levi

This is an interesting thought ... coming from an atheist. He is saying that people "obey nature" when they gossip. There is this urge in the soul of unsanctified people, those that have not yielded this area of their lives to be conformed into the image of the Son, to transmit information, gossipy information. The urge is so powerful, that when they release the information, Levi says there is an "explosive relief." It's this explosive relief that makes gossip so powerful to the speaker, so addictive.

Quote on Gossip

All the gossip and craziness becomes a kind of sustained narrative which, in turn, can become history. It's scary.
-Barbara Kruger

Quote on Gossip

Ah, well, the truth is always one thing, but in a way it's the other thing, the gossip, that counts. It shows where people's hearts lie.
-Paul Scott

The Chinese Underground Church and Hermeneutics

A Chinese Proverb states: "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."

I was contacted two weeks ago by a friend who runs a missions organization. When he was at a conference in November, he ran into a couple from the underground church in China. They had been brought over to the U.S. by a parachurch group for training and discipleship, only to find out that the group was a cult. So he took them away from the cult and spent two week training them. He videotaped all the lessons with a translator present. The couple and another missionary will be bringing the videos back to the underground church in China and they will be spreading them throughout the country. He asked me to do one day on hermeneutics. So last Thursday morning I drove up and taught all day. I covered basic principles of interpretation, the hermeneutical journey (the steps according to Grasping God’s Word), and genre specific principles (Gosples, letters, parables, and OT law). I think it went very well. I had never taught through a translator before, but the translator did an excellent job. Please pray for the couple as they continue being discipled.

What an honor it was to meet this couple and open God's Word to them. I was very confused about how to approach some of the hermeneutical issues I wanted to address since I didn't know anything about Mandarin. I had a section on "pronouns," but I didn't know if their language used pronouns! I had a section on active and passive verbs, but I didn't know if their language did that! The translator was exceptional and very helpful in these areas ... and many others (they do use pronouns and have active and passive verbs). I was able to use the Chinese Bible I have from Bibleworks and put the verses I was talking about on a screen so they could read them as I taught. Praise God for Bibleworks!!! (I've said that many times!)

My prayer is that the people who watch the video will learn to did into God's Word themselves, that they will search the Scriptures thoroughly, that they will be diligent, yet cautious, that their time in the Word will lead to a renewed mind, and thus, transformation. May they learn and practice digging deep into God's Word for themselves, and not only depend upon others to feed them.