On Cussing
00:00:00.000 | [music]
00:00:05.440 | We have received quite a few emails on cussing and why it's a sin to let a
00:00:09.760 | four-letter word rip every once in a while. Why or why not is this a sin, Pastor John? And
00:00:15.440 | is there any difference if it's a word directed at a person calling someone a name or just out
00:00:20.640 | loud in response to a circumstance like hitting your thumb with a hammer? What would you say?
00:00:26.880 | Okay, these are questions, this kind of question is the sort of thing parents have to deal with
00:00:34.080 | because we all have to set standards for our kids and I think kids soon, not late, soon
00:00:43.360 | need to have reasons for the standards that you set for them. Like we don't say that in this
00:00:48.400 | family. Well, why don't we say it? And we need reason. So here's some of my thoughts about
00:00:56.320 | language. First, there's a whole category of the misuse of important realities. I'm thinking God,
00:01:09.520 | Jesus Christ, damn, and hell. Let's take those four. I think the Bible is pretty clear and pretty
00:01:20.160 | explicit when it says don't take the name of the Lord in vain, that God as a throwaway word,
00:01:27.440 | or Jesus Christ as a word of "I just hit my finger," or "something just terrible happened," or
00:01:36.160 | "damn" as a swear word, or "hell" as a throwaway swear word. The problem with all those is that
00:01:43.440 | they take things that are unbelievably important, serious, and they turn them into moments of
00:01:52.880 | smallness. There's a disconnect. There's a lack of coherence and harmony between the way they're
00:02:01.200 | being used and the weight that they should carry. If a person uses God and Jesus Christ and damn
00:02:06.960 | and hell as a throwaway standard expression of irritation or anger, he is belittling God,
00:02:16.880 | belittling Christ, belittling the serious of damnation, and belittling hell, and we ought not
00:02:22.720 | to belittle these big, big things. So that's my first take. Second, there's a whole category in
00:02:30.400 | the Bible and in English language called crude, crass, vulgar, indecent. Those words didn't come
00:02:39.440 | out of nowhere. Those words are invented because human beings in every culture have felt certain
00:02:46.160 | things are inappropriate. Every culture has something that they view as offensive, or we
00:02:54.000 | have this word "off-color," or we have the word "rude." Now a person might ask, "Well, is there a
00:03:00.000 | biblical category for that stuff?" And the answer is a resounding "yes." I was talking about this
00:03:05.520 | just the other day, maybe two weeks ago, a week and a half ago, with the guys over at Bethlehem
00:03:11.600 | Seminary about the category of this kind of ethics, and here's a couple of texts. In 1 Corinthians 13,
00:03:19.120 | "Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude."
00:03:25.680 | Rude. Now, "rude" is in the King James translated, "does not behave itself unseemly."
00:03:36.560 | Now that word "unseemly," that's an old-fashioned word. Hardly anybody uses it today,
00:03:42.800 | but we all know what that means. There are things that are inappropriate. They're dishonorable.
00:03:50.560 | They're disgraceful. They're indecent. So the Bible says, "Be aware in the culture where you are
00:03:58.720 | not to offend unnecessarily against what is broadly considered rude." Or here's another one,
00:04:09.680 | Ephesians 5, 4, "Let there be no filthiness, nor foolish talk, nor crude joking, which are,"
00:04:20.160 | and then you get this phrase, "out of place," "unfitting." The Greek is "anakin," but instead,
00:04:28.160 | "Let there be thanksgiving." So Paul knew that there were a hundred decisions you'd have to make
00:04:34.880 | in life for which you couldn't consult a list. There's no list that's going to work for when
00:04:41.360 | something is inappropriately crude, or foolish talk, or filthiness. And so he's saying, "But
00:04:47.600 | there is a category, and Christians should not want their language to be crossing over those lines
00:04:56.480 | again and again." And right there at the end of that verse is a third thought. So the first thought
00:05:02.240 | was taking big, weighty, glorious things and belittling them, and speaking as though they
00:05:07.440 | weren't important. And the second thought is there's a biblical category for unseemliness,
00:05:12.960 | and inappropriateness, and rude, and crude, and foolish, and filthy, and Christians ought not to
00:05:19.120 | want that. Here's a third idea. At the end of that verse there that I quoted from Ephesians 5, it
00:05:24.960 | says, "But instead, let there be thanksgiving," which I think means that Paul thought if your
00:05:35.280 | heart is right and brimming with gratitude to God in all things, that will be a monitor on the kind
00:05:46.400 | of crudeness that comes out of your mouth. People that tend to use a lot of four-letter words, a lot
00:05:54.160 | of scatological talk, a lot of harsh, crude, rough, crass talk, are generally sounding pretty angry.
00:06:02.720 | They're not content. They're not happy in Jesus. Something's out of whack in their heart. So I
00:06:11.360 | think a third major issue is, is your heart right? Are these things coming out of a good heart?
00:06:19.280 | Which leads to one last comment. What is it? Ephesians 4, verse 29, "Let no corrupting talk,
00:06:27.600 | no foul talk, come out of your mouths, but only what is good for building up, as fits the occasion,
00:06:36.960 | that it may give grace to those who hear." So here you have Paul explicitly moving beyond
00:06:43.040 | gratitude in my heart, which I think is going to wash away most of the crude stuff, but he's saying,
00:06:50.480 | "Let your language always be good for people." And what he means by good for people is minister
00:06:58.400 | grace for them. So you should ask, if you're about to say some four-letter word, or for some harsh and
00:07:05.360 | ugly thing that's kind of dirty, is it going to be good for people? Is it going to build them up? Is
00:07:11.760 | it going to make them stronger? Is it going to make Christ more beautiful in their eyes? So
00:07:17.920 | those are general thoughts. Let me see if I can sum them up. Let me try. One, don't debase and
00:07:24.320 | cheapen great reality. Number two, does it come under the category of culturally recognized,
00:07:32.160 | crude, off-color, vulgar, offensive? Three, does it reveal a bitter, overly angry, dissatisfied
00:07:41.840 | rather than thankful heart? And four, does it minister grace to those who hear? We live—you
00:07:49.600 | and I both, Tony, know we cherish Christ and the gospel above all, and that should mean that grace
00:07:57.840 | is abounding in our hearts, and most of the language that is offensive and questionable
00:08:03.440 | is simply contrary to ministering grace and living out of grace.
00:08:07.840 | Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening to this podcast. Please email your
00:08:11.040 | questions to us at AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org. At DesiringGod.org you'll find thousands of other
00:08:16.320 | free resources online from John Piper. I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening.
00:08:20.240 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:08:22.000 | you
00:08:22.080 | [BLANK_AUDIO]