Devotional Blog

The house I grew up in was an old vernacular architecture style built back in the 20s.    

 It no longer stands today – lost to bulldozers to make way for a new hospital that was taking over the entire neighborhood.  Ironically, the hospital itself succumbed to the disease of progress in recent years.  Though the house was small by today’s standards, it was well-appointed inside with dark walnut woodwork throughout.  The living room – or parlor as we called it was large enough to accommodate our grand piano and had a cozy fireplace flanked by glass-door bookcases on either side underneath a wall-to-wall mantle.  The mantle held many artifacts received through the years from visiting missionaries – each with its own story to tell. 

Off the parlor was our dining room where we gathered for supper each evening to eat and recount the day’s activities.  Behind the table along the wall stood a long sideboard and tucked in the corner was a small table.  That table is the focus of this story. 

It was called a telephone table.  This was the 50s – one phone per household, generally, and probably a party line to save money.  Yes, there was always the temptation to listen in on conversations being held by one of the neighbors!  When the household budget allowed it, we got a private line.

The little telephone stand held the phonebook, some pads of paper and a stone that sat alongside the phone for as long as I can remember.  Why would anyone have a stone on their telephone table?  It had no special characteristics, just a plain old stone plucked from our garden.  One day curiosity got the best of me and I asked my mother why the stone was on that table. 

“It’s a reminder to me not to gossip when I talk on the phone,” she replied. 

“How does a stone remind you not to gossip?” I responded. 

She explained to me the story in the Bible about the woman caught in adultery.  (John 8) No details on the definition of adultery – I was too young to know.  My, how times have changed! 

The text says the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman to Jesus who had been caught in the act of adultery.  “The law of Moses says to stone her.  What do say, Jesus?”  Jesus stooped down to draw attention away from the woman.  The group demanded an answer.

 Jesus said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!”  Upon hearing this the accusers slipped away one by one. 

“Ma, how does this relate to gossip?”

“Gossip is also a sin,” she told me. 

Indeed!  Leviticus 19:6 says, “Do not spread slanderous gossip among your people.”  And Romans 1:29, “Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip.

Are you struggling with some sin today?  Perhaps gossip isn’t something with which you struggle.  But the Bible says there is none righteous and that all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God. (Romans 3:10, 23) “… the wages of sin is death.  But the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”  (Romans 6:23) However, if we confess our sin, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9) There is no forgiveness without repentance.

 “If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.  For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved.” (Romans 10:9-10)

Telephone tables may have gone by the wayside, but sin has not. 

Bill Erickson