Damaging a witness

This weekend at church I felt very torn. I have two friends, and one was really hurting our witness. My one friend does not attend often at our church. After my Hebrew class I decided to go down and see if she was still down there. She was sitting with couple of other people, I decided I would go and talk to them all.
We talked about a few things. Then the subjected changed to something I really wish, I wasn’t there for but I am glad I was there for it. One of the people started talking about something, she shouldn’t have because it ended up being a bad witness.
Sometimes at church, we need to think that what we say it can cause other people hurt and pain. It can lead into gossip and evil speech which should never happen at church. We are to be careful of what we say because we shouldn’t cause a blemish on someone else. This was a uncomfortable position because I do not like to correct people, and well expecially in front of other people.
We are told in the Bible we are not to speak evil of people, In Matthew it is outlined how to deal with someone who grieves you. If you hear something and do not know the person then you should not carry it on to another person asking about it.
Gossip is a like a
printers not printing what should be printed but just printing what it wants to. It is a waste of time and a waste of paper. We as believers need to think about what we say to people, are our words going to cause damage to the person reputation, or if they go back is it going to hurt the person who it was said about. I have had to learn from first hand experience how repeating what people say about someone else can hurt that person. I regret the hurt I caused them, and wish I would have used better judgment but at the time I didn’t know what I know now. I have learned my lesson. I have also learned from the experience at other church where I have overheard people backbiting, this hurt me more then anything.
We should be less on the look out to speak ill of people and start looking for the best about them.