One of the news headlines yesterday was that a man called Joey Barton, a football manager, was ordered to pay Jeremy Vine, a TV and radio presenter, £75,000 for defamatory and slanderous comments.
Can you imagine if we were ordered by some Divine court (who sees everything we have ever said) to pay fines for every slanderous defamatory words we have spoken about other people? No one would have any money would they?!
In a final section James once again doesn’t mince his words. He says that no one in the Church should speak in a harmful way about another.
“Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against a brother or sister or judges them speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. 12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbour?” (James 4 v 11-12)
Why should we not slander others?
- When we begin to sit in judgment on another then we have moved away from the main focus of being a good person ourselves. We have stopped looking at how we are doing regarding the standards of living set out by God and have focused on the other and how they are not being who they should be. Read the words again. God is the only who can sit in judgment because He has given the law/the standard for life. When we slander, accuse or defame we are taking on a role we were never created to take.
- When we speak against another we put ourselves out of step with God. When we huddle together to pass on confidential information (another word for gossip) and which then destroys someone’s reputation there is someone missing in that huddle, God, He is not there.
- We forget who we are. Who are you? That is the rhetorical question and the answer is certainly not the Judge.
Tough words for all of us.
Missions Paul 