Psalm 50:20

You speak continually against your brother
and slander your own mother's son.
(NIV)

This particular issue has almost become a non-issue here in the modern world. To speak against someone, whether to their face, or behind their back, is almost a continual daily occurrence.

I couldn't even begin to list the number of times that I have heard, or I myself have participated in, speaking against a boss. I mean really. Bosses are such easy targets sometimes. And what about co-workers? How many times have you had a co-worker that you have spoken out against them.

Sometimes in a disagreement between someone, you might immediately go out and start trying to see who is on your side. So you go from person to person, maligning that particular co-worker's name in the process of trying to get others to feel the same way about them as you do.

I had a boss one time that really just rubbed me the wrong way. And once he actually made a decision that was just plain unfair. Truly it was. So, in my quest to acquire a "multitude of counselors" and to get as much advice as I could, I began to tell everyone about it. Of course each person that I told, I spoke to them as if in confidence. I made it sound to them as if they were the only one I was talking to about the situation. I can still remember when I realized how many people that I had actually been talking to. When I realized that I was guilty of a verse like this.

God gave us our words, our language, to be used to build others up. That is what we should be doing.