Pam Padgett - teacher
Matt. 12:36 But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.
Yesterday while Joan and I were talking on the telephone she mentioned a
new book she was reading and that the name of the author seemed
familiar to her although she didn't know why. She asked if I had ever
heard of this man. His name was not familiar to me. I offered to see
what information was available about him on the internet. I found
information about him on Wikipedia and read the summary about him to
Joan. None of this sounded familiar to Joan. Then I noticed a little
farther down more information about government offices he held and about his crime conviction and prison sentence. This didn't sound
familiar to Joan either. She mentioned that maybe she knew him from
football, but I didn't see anything about football.
Then I looked at other articles on the internet about this man and found
two or three articles that accused him of being the biological father
of a well known person. Without first checking to see if these articles were from credible sources,
I read aloud from these articles. At the end of the last article I
read I noticed it was from the National Enquirer, a tabloid newspaper
widely known to recklessly publish sensational, scandalous accounts! Of
course I told this to Joan, but I had already spread what was printed
there.
My carelessness in what I read aloud spread something from a very questionable source.
Later Joan called me. She had been troubled by the scandalous report
and had been reminded that we'll give account for every idle word we
speak. She had looked on Wikipedia herself, but didn't find anything
about the scandal. (We will not name this man and spread the scandal though we present this as a teaching warning about spreading words of other people for if those words are untrue we will be held accountable for telling others the story although the story did not originate with us.)
One of the things Joan saw on Wikipedia was that this man had played
football, but I totally missed that! This was in a section titled
"Personal". I was looking at this on my kindle and would have had to expand this section to see what was written there. I didn't do this, for I was looking at sections with titles that sounded more
"public", well known, or sensational. I was stirred up
by the various things this man had done, and was very open to sensational and
scandalous talk about him, such as what I found in the other articles.
There is a great deal of information on the internet. But, just as what
we hear on television or from other people, what is on the internet may not be true.
This was a very strong reminder that we are responsible for what we take in and speak and need to be careful
when we pass on something reported by another person, for we will be
held accountable for what we speak.