FreeTruth

To wrap up my posts on the tongue let me give you one final step toward cleaning up our mouths.

Step Five: Gratitude and Wonder

In Ephesians 5:3, 4 Paul tells us not to be crude and vulgar, profaning the sacred gift of sexuality. But that's not all he says; he also says that we should speak and think of these things with "thanksgiving". Over in 1 Timothy 4:1-5 he says something similar: we sanctify God's gifts of sex and food by thanking Him for them.

Here's how to keep your heart from profaning things holy and beautiful: be actively, consciously, insistently, reverently thankful for them. Think of them and then treat them as holy and precious gifts from God. This putting on of thankfulness will help you to put off profanity.

It's hard to treat with dishonor something that you are consciously thankful for as a gift from God. So spend time thanking God His name, for His church, for His Law, for His gift of sex, for all things holy and good and beautiful. Use your tongue to praise the holy and good, and you'll find your tongue reticent to speak flippantly about the same.

Nothing so mortifies sins of the tongue like the right use of the tongue. Nothing so lifts us up from the gutter of the profane like a love and celebration of the sacred.

God help us to tame our tongues by turning them loose with praise.

Labels: Sanctification, speech, tongue

Step Four: Trust God

I have found that the single greatest help in the restraining of my angry tongue from sinful outbursts has been a strong, sustained, conscious trust in the sovereignty of God.

Think about it: normally why do people curse? It's because we get angry. Why do we get angry? Because either people or circumstances do not treat us the way we want.

But who controls and governs the people in our lives or the circumstances that fill them? God. That means that when we curse in anger it is because in that moment we are not trusting or resting in the sovereign purposes of God for us in that moment. We're mad at what God has ordained. Cursing is anger expressed which is really unbelief at work.

A few years back I made a picnic table. It took hours of planning and labor and (as you would expect with me) sweat. Within a week or two of when I finished it--and I think even before we had a chance to use it more than once or twice, a storm hit. Heavy winds blew, knocking down a tree. Guess where it landed? Right on my table.

How do you think I responded? Believe it or not, I laughed. It was a good hearty, cheerful, full-bodied laugh of faith. For somehow in that moment, I was conscious of the fact that God rules over wind and trees and where trees trees land--and God must have had a reason for landing one on my handiwork.

Faith in a sovereign God made me laugh at that moment when at other times, when I have not been God-aware, I have not. Trust in a soveriegn God made me laugh at calamity; it never even crossed my mind to curse or even come close.

I wish it was always easy to keep from the angry outburst. What I have found is that the more I live in the shadow of God's throne, conscious that He reigns over every detail of life, including smashed tables, hammer-smashed thumbs, dents to the car, and the flat out crises of life, the less I get angry or succumb to anger's outbursts against God or others or things. The more I trust sovereignty, the less i even think about cursing the problems or people in my life.

Labels: Sanctification, speech, tongue

Step Three: Hope

Some of us may hear our speech patterns and despair that we can ever clean them up. Don't.

Just because we may be far removed from where God wants us to be does not mean that we cannot get there from here; it only means that we have a long way to go.

In all my years I've never figured out a way to get from anywhere to any other where except to take a first step. The fact that there is a long way to go need not deter us from going. Let's move!

Start today: pray that God gives you awareness of when you're about to sin with your mouth or just have. Ask Him for grace to have a vigilant mind. This will help you to have one victory here; another there. One good word choice to restrain or change the tongue will lead to another. And while you may never get to perfection, you'll sure make progress.

If you curse or use profanity one less time than you did yesterday, that's one less sin. And be sure of this: that's growth; growth that will lead to more.

Have hope in the power of grace!

Labels: Sanctification, speech, tongue

In the battle to clean up our words we come to another key element.

Step Two: Embrace Grace

When Isaiah came to grips with his dirty mouth he right away found grace to have it forgiven (Isiah 6:5-7). God forgives dirty mouths like he forgives everything else we've ever done wrong.

As you confess your sins, realize that God is faithful and just to forgive it (1 John 1:9). Two things to keep in mind: Jesus died for your dirty mouth, and Jesus didn't have one. Because He had a clean mouth, His cleanness is counted as yours. Your record before God--based on the imputed clean mouth of Christ--is that you have never cursed, never been profane, never been potty-mouthed at all. Infact you've always said the perfect, right, clean and pure thing!

Praise God in Christ for a blood-bought forgiveness and a perfect righteousness in which before God we stand. To be sure don't let your forgveness in Christ become a license to sin, but also don't let your battles with profanity become a battle with condemnation.

Live in the power and freedom of a clean record before God. Then go out and seek to sin no more.

Labels: Sanctification, speech, tongue

Before I go any further I want to clarify something I wrote yesterday by emphasizing it. In my first couple of paragraphs I was not endorsing the use of the s- or f- words as if they really, in today's culture and use, are valid. I tried to qualify that at the end of those comments but at least one has thought that maybe I was not strong enough in what I said.

Folks, when a word has an overwhelmingly vulgar and base sense connected to it in a given time and place--even if there is a strict literal meaning of that word that is not vulgar, it is the height of foolishness (at best) to use that word. More likely the choice to use that word even in a strict literal way would evidence a carnal desire to sound edgy, and/or a callous disregard for others and for the name and testimony of Christ. Avoid these words because even if you think you are using a valid word in a valid way, you'll be about the only one who thinks so. In such a case you may not be guilty of vulgarity, but you will be guilty of something worse: a lack of love and concern for others.

Now that said, I want to be sure to include in these posts a few helps as to how to move toward the cleaning up or sanctifying of our words. Over the next few days I'll suggest five steps toward a cleaner mouth. I hope they provoke growth and holiness in us all.

Step One: Integrity

I think the first step toward cleaning up our mouths is being honest that they are dirty. If the holy, godly, mighty prophet Isaiah admitted a dirty mouth (Isaiah 6:5), we can be pretty sure that we need to admit it too.

Let's be honest: all of us are at least tempted to curse and be profane. I'm not talking necessarily about certain four-letter words. Your curses may be words that others consider innocent. You can be cursing by saying "Phooey!!" if the word is coming out in anger; or by saying "Idiot" if your heart is defiling and denegrating another human being made in the image of God.

People often say that because words are used so frequently and mindlessly they lose their meaning so that when people use them they may not really be cursing in ther hearts at all. I suppose that it's possible, in a given moment, to use a word mindlessly, but I'm not sure that that means cursing has not happened. I still would maintain that these words are chosen at some level precisely because they carry a certain sound and cultural meaning that satisfy the flesh at that moment.

Why don't more people say "Phooey!" instead of "D**n"? I think it's because the latter feels better to an angry heart than the former does. Why do so many exclaim the "s" word instead of some other word for excrement? Folks, the words we use, we use because they sound/feel sufficiently nasty to express our anger, naughty to satisfy our flesh, edgy to sound cool, or titillating to get attention. We need the integrity to confess that we use them for these reasons, and ask God to forgive the sinful heart that produced them.

It does us no good to make believe there's no profanity or cursing in our hearts. Integrity admits it, and integrity gets us moving in a new direction. Why not start here and go to God with an honest heart?

Labels: Sanctification, speech, tongue

S**t and f**k are not, in themselves, bad words. In their original meanings and still in some places they are simply synonyms for excrement and copulation respectively. Profanity is not made up of words with four letters. Profanity is a state of the heart. What makes a person profane is not the collection of letters and words he uses, but the angry or dirty or naughty or titillating intent of the heart when he uses them.

It is possible theoretically to use the "s" or "f" word without being profane at all, if one uses them as simple straight-forward terms for waste or copulation. I would not recommend doing this, since in fact cultural use has so influenced our perception of these terms that they are equated with profanity even if no profanity is intended. If at all possible, unless we have a really good reason for it, we need not risk confusing people by using words that they think are dirty just because we know a strict literal meaning that allows their use. Why bother when there are plenty of other more reputable words to use?

Apparently though, there are times when really strong words are justified. Paul seems to use a strong, even socially edgy term for excrement in Philippians 3:8. The Greek word that the ESV translates "rubbish" should more accurately be rendered dung or manure or excrement. Some argue that the term he chooses (skubalah) goes beyond a mere reference to waste; that it is a colloquial term meant to communicate the repulsiveness and filthiness of waste. They argue that it might even be equivalent to a bold, disgusted use of the word "s**t" (see Mark Driscoll/Doug Wilson, Chapter Two of Driscoll's Religion Saves). At least Mr. Driscoll, whose ministry I highly respect in many ways, seems to find in this some justification for the use of edgy, even crude terms in ministry and life.

Having read their sources and the Theological Dictionary of New Testament Words' entry on skubalah, I am not convinced that their conclusion is at all necessary or accurate. The term Paul uses clearly does speak of the righteousness produced by our good works as no better than waste. And Paul is clearly trying to communicate that we should think of our self-made righteousnes in the most vile and repulsive of categories.

But this is not to say that Paul is coming anywhere near to cursing or being profane, or justifying the use of profanity. He's simply using a strong term of revulsion in its literal sense to describe what is truly revolting in the sight of God: the dung of self-made righteousness. Friends: any attempts at creating a righteousness of our own before a holy God are as revolting and disgusting in God's sight as a pile of filthy fresh stinking dung is in ours.

Granted, there is shock in Paul's words, but there is no profanity. He is not using words about waste because he regularly thinks about waste or lingers at the bathroom level in his mind. He simply tries to find the strongest word he can think of to describe the filth of human righteousness. Paul is not speaking of the vile for profane reasons; nor is he using words that refer to holy and sacred matters irreverently. He's simply calling self-made righteousness what it is.

To conclude from this that we can freely use words about filth or sex or hell or damnation without careful regard for their vile or holy or fearsome significance is to go beyond what is allowed. In my opinion, it is to be profane.

Am I making any sense?

Labels: Sanctification, speech, tongue

I've argued previously that profanity begins with a fundamental baseness of mind; a thought or word or life-style that violates the standard of loveliness, worthiness of praise , and positive virtue and excellence that is called for in such passages as Phil. 4:8. Commitment to moral excellence will entail abstinence from things base and vile.

But there is a more serious profanity of which we must be aware. It is that profanity addressed by Bruce in his comments the other day:

A basic dictionary definition of the word profane is to treat (something sacred) with abuse, irreverence, or contempt; or, to debase by a wrong, unworthy, or vulgar use. Having said that, let me take a stab towards a basic definition. We might say that profanity is expressing or reflecting in our words, attitudes that are contemptuous or irreverent toward God, or toward that which God regards as sacred or special.

It's hard to improve on that so I think I'll deal only with specifics. We are guilty of being profane whenever we treat lightly or flippantly anything that God treats seriously or sacredly. This would include the following (to mention just a few):
1. His Name (phrases such as "O my God" or their euphemistic sounds-alikes should be avoided out of reverence for the Holy Name.
2. Vows made in His Name, and then broken, profane the Name by which they are made.
3. Flippant references to "hell" or "damnation". In addition to being literal curses which only God has a right to speak in anger, the words hell and damn should never be spoken except with strict and sober attention to what they mean and how serious they are (as for me, I'll risk really sounding extreme by adding that we'd do well to avoid the euphemistic substitutes of heck and darn while we're at it; why even kid ourselves into thinking we're not sinning, or at least being careless about something serious when we use such subsitutes?). When we use such words without strict attention to what they mean, at best we water down their holy meaning; worse we are guilty of profanity and cursing.
4. All careless, flippant, irreverent references to sex, God's holy gift in marriage. It's clear from scripture that sex is a holy gift not to be treated lightly (Ephesians 5:3,4) so any reference to it that is not made in a most careful tone of gratitude and wonder, is profanity. (Along these lines I've noted how many words people choose to use that mess around with the scatological and the sexual: cr-p, s--t, f---, frick-n, p-d off, scr-wed, s-cks, SOB, A--, A--h-le; need I go on?). Let us stand guard my friends, lest we defile what is pure, and render commonplace and normal what isn't.
2. His Church or Word or Law--any time we ignore or slander the church or disobey His law or disregard His Word we treat as common that which is very holy in the sight of God.

It should go without saying, but it doesn't, that one may be profane in all these areas without ever actually using a four-letter word. As Bruce has indicated, profanity is a state of heart before it is a set of words.

The call upon all of our lives to to treat as holy all that is holy; to love what God loves, honor what God honors, elevate what is meant to be high, and while we're at it, to just plain stay out of the profanity gutter.

Labels: Sanctification, speech, tongue

Bruce and Tom's comments on yesterday's post about the nature of profanity were excellent and can help us move toward a biblical understanding of this matter. We must see that we can and do have a profane heart before we ever have a profane mouth.

First of all, a profane heart is a heart that simply dwells on base, filthy, crude, vulgar, unlovely things. By the standard of Philippians 4:8, Ephesians 5:4, and 1 Corinthians 13:5 anything that is unlovely, dishonorable, crude, unworthy of praise, and/or rude (the Greek word for "rude" in 1 Cor. 13:5 speaks of that which is unbecoming or disgraceful) is simply not to occupy our minds or hearts, never mind our conversations.

In my view, this most basic form of heart profanity self-evidently rules out language that is crude or vulgar or unlovely. By this definition, it disallows scatological "potty mouthed" talk (bathroom humor, flippant references to human waste--whatever the choice of four, five, eight, ten letter words one might opt for--or crude bodily functions and sounds that everyone knows to be base, filthy, unlovely, rudely unbecoming). Every careless word we use about these should be put off so that something better can be put on.

This is not to say that bathroom functions and related matters can never be spoken of in a proper and appropriate way; they can and indeed at times must be. But it is to say that when Christians think and speak of such things commonly or crudely or flippantly, they are at least dabbling in the profane.

There are of course worse forms of profanity than this--such as when we treat and speak of holy, sacred, pure, awesome, and terrible (in a holy, fear-of-God sort of way) matters as if they are trite or trivial or base or common--about which we will think in further posts. But we can discern profanity at this starting point.

It is a sign of what John Piper calls a "minimalist ethic" when Christians argue that such bathroom humor is not really that bad; that it's morally neutral at worst. Folks, isn't that succombing to a minimalist approach to virtue; a settling for something that really isn't that bad instead of pursuing something that really is that good?

Shouldn't we be aiming at what is actually and positively pure, holy, lovely, and good? Does a Christian really want his mind and/or his mouth to live in the bathroom? I think not. In every thought, word, and deed, the Christian should be striving for what is excellent, lovely, and worthy of praise. I have my doubts that bathroom and gutter-talk qualify.

Labels: Sanctification, speech

One of my growing concerns in recent years is what I've called "the dirtying of the Christian mouth". Isaiah identified having a dirty mouth as one of the sins that made him feel undone in the presence of a holy God (Isaiah 6:3-5).

What I don't seem to sense today is a similar conviction among my Christian contemporaries. The Bible has a lot to say about the sins of the tongue; a lot! Why is it then that we seem so little concerned about what God seems so very concerned about?

There's a lot of ways we could go with this conversation, but let me start with a conversation starter: "What is profanity?" I'd really be interested to hear from you regarding how you'd define this; then I'll chime in some thougths over a few days period.

One with you in aiming for all things honorable, virtuous, good and lovely (Philippians 4:8).
Tim

Labels: Sanctification, speech