2021/09/22

5. Gossip

In the last post, I said that the serpent in Genesis is the accidental information that arose between two or more people. An apt example of this is gossip. Whatever the source of the gossip, it comes and goes between people like a serpent crawling. Since accidental information occurs naturally among animals and in nature, it makes us feel comfortable in our senses and smoothly enters our thoughts. We often try to diffuse it without distinguishing it from our thoughts as we distinguish ourselves from others. But there is often a contradiction between the information we have spread and our thoughts. This contradiction causes fear in us and bruises the heel of us walking towards truth and hope. If you are a Christian, it will make you hesitate to walk with Jesus. To protect people from such a risk, God declared to the serpent in ancient times, "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed" (Genesis 3:15). The enmity God has put in our memory alarms us when the accidental information comes to our senses. We need to be constantly awake to the enmity God has placed in us to recognize the accidental information as other. Christians must follow the example of Jesus tested by Satan (the demon) in the wilderness at the beginning of his public life. The accidental information appeared even in Jesus, who was divine but also human. Jesus, who was always awake to the enmity God had placed in him, clearly recognized this information as other and bruised its head by the word of God. And he dismissed it, calling it Satan.

Reference: The Estuary of Theology issue 14 "I will put enmity".

Maria K. M.