LET’S GET IT RIGHT FAMILY
Is this backbiting or gossiping by Prophet Nathan in Bible (we are to be wise according to Scripture) or intelligence if the leader(s) in his reaction, will not take sides?
(1 Kings 1:11-15 NKJV)
[11]So Nathan spoke to Bathsheba the mother of Solomon, saying, “Have you not heard that Adonijah the son of Haggith has become king, and David our lord does not know it?
[12]Come, please, let me now give you advice, that you may save your own life and the life of your son Solomon.
[13]Go immediately to King David and say to him, ‘Did you not, my lord, O king, swear to your maidservant, saying, “Assuredly your son Solomon shall reign after me, and he shall sit on my throne“? Why then has Adonijah become king?’
[14]Then, while you are still talking there with the king, I also will come in after you and confirm your words.”
[15]So Bathsheba went into the chamber to the king. (Now the king was very old, and Abishag the Shunammite was serving the king.)…
This one by the household of Chloe to Paul, is it?
1 Corinthians 1:10-15
[10]Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.
[11]For it has been declared to me concerning you, my brethren, by those of Chloe’s household, that there are contentions among you.
[12]Now I say this, that each of you says, “I am of Paul,” or “I am of Apollos,” or “I am of Cephas,” or “I am of Christ.”
[13]Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
[14]I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius,
[15]lest anyone should say that I had baptized in my own name…
Those kinds of examples of reports above to leaders to safeguard effective leadership are not what we call backbiting. They are called intelligence.
Neither Prophet Nathan nor Bathsheba could be said to be backbiting or gossiping when they were swift to approach David to immediately arise and do the needful, lest, God’s will be jeopardized.
In the same vein, in the Christian Corinthians’ Church, some believers Paul identified as the household of Chloe had approached Paul (who was not a spirit to know what was threatening the Gospel in Corinth) and told him how the believers’ group there were wrongly going. How can God or anyone be correct to call them backbiters or gossipers for doing so? No, they were not. It’s only those that care about God’s thing that can be close to a servant of God in order to safeguard the work of God from being hijacked by seeming enemies within and without.* So, let’s keep watching. We are not backbiters or gossipers when we keep our ears on the ground to hear what the agents of the devil in their ignorance are scheming so as not to take us unawares before they strike. We should not mind anything when it looks like heaven is falling after a warning is sounded like we read the Apostle Paul doing above. It’s natural for them that temporarily allow a bad spirit within them to react like that because when one doesn’t know how the power of God works and how His word is daily applied, such will always get into a mess all the time. (cf. Matt. 22:29)
Let’s keep being a mature household of God. (See Heb.5:12-6:3)
SHALOM!