Backbiting

Backbiting

“Do not speak evil of one another, brethren. He, who speaks evil of a brother and judges his brother, speaks evil of the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but its judge. There is one Lawgiver and Judge, who is able to save and to destroy. Who are you to judge another?” Jas. 4:11-12. “The older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not slanderers . . . .” Tit. 2:3.

Older women are more apt to backbite, but this sin usually clings more or less to everyone. In 1 Peter 2:1 the apostle Peter exhorts the saints—those who were born again to a living hope and who were kept by the power of God through faith for salvation (Ch. 1:3, 5) to put off all evil speaking. We cannot be exhorted to put something off that we do not have on us. This tells us that he presupposes that evil speaking clings to the saints. It is very important to put it all off so that not even a remnant of it is left.

From 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 we see that it is a deception to think that revilers [backbiters, those who speak evil] can inherit God’s kingdom. They will not enter in. In 1 Corinthians 5:11 Paul insists that we should not even eat together with anyone who is considered a brother and speaks evil of another person. Nevertheless, we must differentiate between being a backbiter and falling in backbiting just as we differentiate between getting drunk one time or another and being a drunkard. A drunkard is someone who is in the habit of drinking, and a backbiter is someone who is in the habit of backbiting.

These two scriptures also tell us that backbiting is on the same level as drunkenness. It is important that we see it as serious as it is. If we consider that backbiting is just as bad as coming home from town drunk, then most of all backbiting would be put off quickly. If a person is a backbiter who is in the habit of backbiting, gossiping, and spreading evil rumors, he will not enter into the kingdom of God. If a person has fallen in backbiting, he has to get up again, cleanse himself by asking God and people for forgiveness, and then see to it that he gets the victory over such things in the future.

What is it actually that shall and must be considered backbiting? The word itself indicates that it is speaking behind the back of another person. However, praising a person who is not present is of course not backbiting. When you speak badly about a person who is not present in order to belittle him, it is backbiting of the worst kind. It is also backbiting and belittling a person when you unthinkingly speak badly about a person.

On the other hand, when you speak about the brother’s folly to someone who loves the person out of a desire to serve him and out of care for his salvation, then there is nothing evil about it, and therefore it does not fall under the term backbiting. To this must be added that this is a rare occurrence. What usually happens is backbiting either with or without reflection.

There was a sister who refrained from making it known for a longer period of time that a woman in the assembly lived an ungodly life in secret and thus deceived the friends. She was afraid it would be backbiting to make it known. Yet it would not have been. On the contrary! By doing that, she would have done everyone a good service. When God’s servants speak together about the various souls whose eternal salvation and benefit is on their hearts, it is totally different from backbiting.

It is quite common to attempt to defend one’s backbiting by saying that it is true what one is saying. This is a great misunderstanding. Even if it were completely pure and perfectly true what the person said, when you belittle your brother, it is unqualified backbiting, unqualified sin. Backbiting is not lying; it is speaking derogatively.

Another point is that one sin is often followed by another sin; it is therefore evident that it is virtually impossible to backbite without lying or relating something incorrectly. The result is two sins.