Lots and lots of good can be done by the tongue, so it is particularly unfortunate when Christian women stir up evil and mischief with their tongues by backbiting, criticizing, or general cattiness. This tears the place up when we ought to be building. It is destructive, not constructive, creating division where there ought to be unity, and more than one church has been destroyed this way.
Cattiness includes all of the following: making stuff up, believing the made-up stuff and passing it on, talking about things that are not our business, breaking a confidence, criticizing choices other people make about their own lives (especially topics relating to children, childbirth, education, birth control, etc.), running down husbands, or grumbling about decisions made by those in authority over us, whether it is parents, husband, pastors, elders, or our city council. Backbiting, reproaching, being at tattler and busybody can be summed up as “speaking things which they ought not” (1 Timothy 5:13). Slander, false statements maliciously intended to hurt someone’s reputation, putting spin on the story, being spiteful with a desire to hurt, annoy, or humiliate; complaining, attributing motives….all this can be called backbiting or cattiness.
Consider Psalm 15:1-3:
“Lord, who may abide in Your tabernacle? Who may dwell in Your holy hill?
He who walks uprightly, and works righteousness, and speaks the truth in his heart;
He who does not backbite with his tongue, nor does evil to his neighbor, nor does he take up a reproach against his friend.”
The wise walks, works, and speaks. How? Uprightly, with righteousness and truth in his heart. The foolish backbites, does evil, and takes up a reproach.
To avoid being catty ourselves, we can ask God to “Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips” (Ps. 141:3). This is a good prayer that we ought to pray when we are in situations particularly conducive to idle chatter. Better to be quiet than participate in a conversation that you know to be unwise.
I’ve known of ladies who joined women’s groups that they soon quit because of the vast amount of idle chatter. So consider what the tone is at some of the women’s get-togethers you participate in. If it is negative, and you are not able to steer it, find something better to do with your time.
If you have participated in the gossip, confess it to those people who heard you say it. It is unwise to confess your gossip to the person you have wronged unless you have good reason to think they have heard about it. But if they have, then by all means seek their forgiveness as well.
Another tactic is one my mother-in-law used. After moving to a new community, some of the church ladies began calling her with the latest scoop. So she responded once by saying something like this: “Is that really true? Did she really do that? Then come over right now, and we will go confront her about it.” The woman passing on the information had no desire to go confronting anyone, and soon Bessie was scratched off the gossip chain much to her relief.
If someone is dropping hints about something and obviously wants you to ask who it is, there is nothing wrong with reminding them that you are not interested in knowing information that is supposed to be confidential. But there is a difference between news and gossip. Gossip is passing on information that is not intended to be public, while news is not meant to be hush-hush. Announcing an engagement is news, unless you were asked to keep it quiet. Passing on the information that someone has been fired from his job may be news, but it may not be kind or necessary to spread around.
Corrie Ten Boom suggested that you ask yourself three things before sharing information: Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?
Another guideline that we use is this: Is the person I am telling part of the problem? Is he part of the solution? If not, then he probably doesn’t need to know.
We never promise secrecy, but we do exercise what we call responsible confidentiality. If someone says, “I’m going to tell you something, but first I want you to promise me that you won’t tell anyone else,” we never give such a promise. After hearing whatever it is, we may need to call their parents, their spouse, or maybe even the police. You just never know. That is not gossip; it is being responsible with information. But if we call a few friends to say, “Guess what I just heard,” we are obviously being gossips.
Finally, we should take Paul’s exhortation to heart in Ephesians 4:29:”Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.” This is the Christian standard for communication. Anything less needs to be confessed and forsaken.

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