There's a certain thing in the Church as prayer gossip. This is when people handle "prayer requests" in a passionate and worldly way. Now, this is hardly ever done in that sort of quieted, secretive, "just between us" type of voice. It's not really gossip in the traditional sense. What it is, though, is a convenient way to talk about others without feeling guilty. You can pity or express your anger or shock concerning some person or some situation... oh, but it's because people want to pray about it. You know you are caught up in prayer gossip when you start repeating things that you shouldn't be repeating, and it hurts or negatively effects someone else. We sometimes sort of like to think of prayer as a web: we ask someone, they'll ask another, etc., and that way there are many people praying for us. Unfortunately, often times this web is more than a communication web, but is actually a sticky spider web. And before you know it, some information gets stuck where it wasn't suppose to, and the spider (Satan) comes around to cause his havoc. And we were the ones who summoned Satan.
Prayer Gossip
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Justin Kissel
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Justin Kissel
I'm saying we shouldn't "ask others to pray for so and so" as a (many times subconcious) excuse to gab about someone or something. We should be careful with what we let "slip out," because what someone might ask you or I to pray about, they might not necessarily want the entire choir or the entire church council to know about. When everyone knows what is wrong with everyone else in a Church (down to where they are attending, who they are dating, what their doctor told them, and so forth), it's either a sign of a very close familial bond, or a whole lotta gossip going on. If it's gossip, it's sin. As much a sin, if not a worse sin, than adultery. It is spiritual fornication. It is being unfaithful with someone else's (and your own) soul, and polluting them.
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Justin Kissel
