I was listening to a seminar the other day by a man called Paul Scanlon he was talking about the dangers of gossip and discord these are things that can cause serious damage to people. He was saying that people who gossip and sow discord have no love for people, no matter how they dress it up to make it sound harmless there is no denying it can have far reaching consequences.
As an example he used the story in the Bible of King David and his son Absalom. Absalom set himself up with men and horses and established himself on a main road leading to king David's palace, when people would come to see the king, Absalom would intercept them and tell them that there was no one available to hear their complaint in David's court and persuade them that if he were ruler in Israel he would deal with their complaints. By doing this he was able to turn the hearts of Israel against the king, this ultimately resulted in Absalom leading a rebellion against king David in which 20,000 of Absalom's new followers were slaughtered and also led to the death of Absalom himself a short while later.
His point was that if you have a problem with someone take it to them directly not to anyone else who can then use the complaint to cause dissatisfaction and discord which only leads to damage.
Good point Gordon - we need to keep ourselves in check all the time!
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