The Sin of Backbiting: Guarding the Tongue Against Reproach

Psalm 15:3 demands that the righteous "backbiteth not with his tongue." How may detraction be prevented or cured? The abuses of the tongue are manifold, and malignity ranks foremost among them. A man can scarcely enter any company without hearing censures, detractions, and reproaches—party against party, person against person.

The duty of every true Christian is clear: take up no reproach against thy neighbour. Augustine declared, "Every man is a neighbour to any other man." A reproach consists of evil speech unduly uttered concerning another—whether false reports, publication of a neighbour's secret infirmities, or aggravation of real or supposed faults. To "take up" a reproach occurs when one becomes the first raiser of it, the spreader and promoter; or when one receives it into the ear—hearing greedily, with delight, or believing easily without verification.

This practice of censuring and backbiting injures God directly. It breaches His express laws, violates the fundamental law of love and charity, transgresses Christ's "royal law," and ruptures peace among men. It constitutes confederacy with God's greatest enemy, the devil himself. Furthermore, the backbiter contracts guilt and wounds himself spiritually. The tongue, when wielded for reproach, becomes an instrument of spiritual destruction—both to the neighbour disparaged and to one's own soul.