We are often advised to report wrongdoing to the authorities. Go to parents or police or professionals and report (tattle, snitch, inform) on many matters.
Does the Bible instruct us to report wrongdoing?
The closest thing I can think of is Jesus speaking in Matthew chapter 17: “If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.”
But that specifically relates to fellow Christians who are engaged in wrongdoing; and the focus is on reconciliation, not punishment.
There’s also Leviticus 5:1:
"'If anyone sins because they do not speak up when they hear a public charge to testify regarding something they have seen or learned about, they will be held responsible.
That doesn’t speak to exposing wrong-doing on one’s own initiative, though.
Damn. Ol’ Matt had quite a sense of humor!!
There’s also Deuteronomy 13:6-11:
Romans 13 argues that the State is an agency for suppressing evil which implies that one should inform it of criminals.
I wonder if the word church was ever said by Jesus, he went to Temple!
This sure doesn’t sound like a Good, Just or loving being!
The situation that provoked the question in my OP was the dismissal of a professor from a Christian college for unknown reasons but it was conjectured he may have been a whistle blower in some impropriety case and I got to pondering what the scriptures may have said about reporting wrongdoing.
That would actually be Matthew 18:15-17.
Small “c” church: a body of people, not a specific location. The Greek word used was ekklēsia, meaning more “an assembly of people.” In context this would suggest “an assembly of other Jews.”
In a broader sense, the Bible repeatedly tells us to protect the weak or helpless, etc. which would often require that we speak up to the authorities about things like child abuse, domestic violence, etc. This concept alone wouldn’t require that you report everything illegal though.
Well, I think we’d go with the Matthew verse for that situation. Christ says go to the offender as a brother first, then to the community of faith, then to the temporal authorities. “Whistleblowing” doesn’t necessarily fit that model, but of course we have no idea what the professor in question might have actually done.
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but it sounds like you disagree with the professor’s termination and are looking for Biblical grounds that the college was wrong to fire him. If that’s the case, I think you’re out of luck.
I don’t know about that. You know what the Bible says about not forgiving people.
It’s against it.
Well, Jesus probably never said the word “temple,” either.
That is correct, but he did go to the Temple and drive out the money changers.
While if you ask for a hard rule, yes you can have a procedure (some have been stated here), Though there is another path in the Bible, trust God your Father, ask Him and He will instruct you in all your ways, seek His counsel and depend not on your own wisdom.
One path leads to death, the other to life.
Don’t forget all snitching happens in accordance with God’s plan.
You know, I kind of have an issue with the semantics of snitching or tattling. These words have a negative connotation that make no sense to me. From the perspective of the perpetrator being told on, snitching is probably an awful thing. From the perspective of the victim and society as a whole, snitching seems to be an awfully good thing. If I have to choose which side I am going to give the benefit of the doubt, I think I will snitch for the victim everytime.
Well damn. That’s an excellent point, and one I overlooked in my guess about the OP’s angle.
Using that kind of pejorative language would suggest that s/he is opposed to the whistleblowing, rather than the school’s response to it.
But given the lack of further input so far I suppose I’ll never know.
Oops, so it is, my mistake. Although really you should have come to me in private about it first before telling the whole assembly. 