Posted on 12/11/2022 12:32:42 AM PST by Pilgrim's Progress
“A talebearer revealeth secrets: but he that is of a faithful spirit concealeth the matter” (Proverbs 11:13 KJV).
The man in the previous verse that is void of wisdom and despiseth his neighbor is also a talebearer. He tells everything he can about his neighbor, trying to destroy him. This is also what the hypocrite from verse 9 is doing. Very likely all three are the same man.
“A talebearer revealeth secrets,” maybe it is true that the neighbor has done something wrong, maybe it is the neighbor’s kid that has messed up and done something. Well, what good is it going to do to run around the neighborhood saying, “Did you hear about so-and-so, what he did?” Maybe what you need to do is pray for them and perhaps give them the Gospel? Maybe they just need someone in the neighborhood to care for them? What about it, Christian?
“. . . but he that is of a faithful spirit concealeth the matter,” it is bad enough what happens to folks, but how much worse when a neighbor that professes to love God goes out and does the job of the gossip columnist and makes things even worse for them? Now “concealeth the matter” does not contradict the Bible where it speaks of “covering” a sin. A Christian isn’t to cover up his sin, he is to confess it. “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy” (Proverbs 28:13 KJV).
What our verse is talking about is gossiping and talebearing. It is just being unkind and unmerciful to people that have problems and have troubles—especially those that should be dwelling safely by us as a neighbor.
There is a kind of gossip that is good and profitable. A turning point in the early life of John Bunyan was when he chanced to hear three or four poor women sitting at a door in the sun talking about the things of God.
If they had been talking about their neighbors or rolling some morsel of scandal under their tongues, who knows that it might not have been altogether different in the future with John Bunyan. But what he heard them talking about was the new birth, the work of God in their hearts, and how they were comforted and refreshed by the love of Christ.
As he went about his work as a tinker, mending the pots and pans of the neighborhood, “their talk and discourse went with him” (Macartney's Illustrations)
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