The Words of My Mouth

Psalm 19:14
“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
Be acceptable in Your sight,
O LORD, my strength and my Redeemer.”

James 3:10-12
“Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening? Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Thus no spring yields both salt water and fresh.”

Carla has a very good series she’s been posting on her blog the past few days about how from the heart our mouth speaks. You can read those posts here, here and here. Specifically she is addressing the disturbing and growing trend among professing Christians to use curse words and filthy language.

I was out somewhere the other day, and there was someone there who I know to be a serious and professing Christian, and she was dealing with a group of kids at this outing. I also know where she is a church member and the solid Bible teaching she sits under because I listen to the pastor of that church on the local Christian radio station. Well, in a moment of frustration while trying to explain something to a second grader who was acting kind of dense at the moment (they do that, you know), she let slip, under her breath, the name of Jesus. But she wasn’t praying or praising. I felt like the air had been knocked out of me. I’m not that naïve. I went to public school and the University of Florida and worked in the "real world" before having children - I have heard some really bad language from my peers. But I didn’t really expect anything different from people who haven’t been born again. I have heard my Lord’s name used as an expletive, but I was surprised to hear this particular woman use His name that way. I’m really hoping I misheard her. I also don’t want to be too harsh or judgmental in my thinking of her, because I think many of us have probably had things slip out that we desperately wish we could take back and never have even thought, much less have said. I do hope that’s the case here, and not that this is a norm for my friend.

I have learned the hard way that I must be very careful with the kinds of things I allow myself to read and listen to on an ongoing basis. I love detective and mystery fiction, but I have to be quite discerning in which authors I spend any time reading. There was one author I was really enjoying for a while, and I checked out several of his books over a few weeks one summer. However, some of the characters in his books used Jesus' name and Christ as swear words often. I tried sort of skipping over it in my mind when I read the books. I didn’t like that. Even more, I very much didn’t like that in moments of frustration sometimes those precious names would pop into my mind in that blasphemous way after I’d read enough of those books. So, I had to quit reading that author. Later on, I had started another book and the author also wrote with the Lord’s name used in this way and with other curse words that were just not necessary to the story – it would have been just as good, better even, without such language. Even though I wanted to continue reading what was turning out to be an interesting story, I closed the book and took it back to the library. I don’t like filling my mind with language that eventually pops into my own thinking. When it’s popping into my mind, it’s only a matter of time before it will slip out of my mouth in a moment of unguarded frustration or anger. Garbage in, garbage out, you know.

I am careful with what I read and allow myself to hear in movies, because, for some reason, curse words (and the “cleaned up” substitute words that are really the same thing as saying the original word) just seem to stick like glue in the back of my mind and are quick to pop into my thinking at inopportune moments, and once in a while I’ve had things slip out of my mouth that I hate. Of course, I feel horrible for days when they do, and, thankfully, with God’s grace, I don’t have much trouble with that so much these days. How much better it is to train my mind to think on the pure, rather than the profane. I do enjoy movies and books, I’m just saying that I’m a lot more careful these days when choosing them. I already know that I struggle mightily with my temper and my tone of voice. I am way, way too quick to yell at my kids when frustrated or angry. I sure don’t want to add to that a struggle with the coarse language that so many seem to think is fine and dandy these days. I can imagine how horrified I’d feel about spilling that kind of toxin over my kids on top of my sinful temper!

That’s what is so disturbing about the discussions going on among certain Christians about when it’s appropriate to curse! It isn’t. We should not be celebrating the very thing we ought to be fleeing from! My liberty in Christ does not mean I’m free to talk like the world and live and sound like the sin from which I’ve been redeemed. My liberty in Christ means I’m free to live for His glory. How, exactly, does talking and writing with words that we all know are ugly, demeaning, and filthy glorify God? It doesn’t. I know that we have seen a general coarsening in our culture. It used to be that gentlemen wouldn’t curse in front of a woman or child. It used to be that certain language was not used in polite society. This is not true any longer. But we Christians ought to be different. We should never let the sin-drenched culture dictate how we talk and live. Even when trying to relate to people in our culture, we do not need to talk ugly like them to reach them. No. We make a greater impact when we stand out and are different enough to have the restraint to keep our language pure. No matter how coarse our society may be becoming, people still do respect someone who can keep their speech clean and their temper in check, though they may not respect them enough to check their own speech in front of them anymore. We are to be salt and light to a dark world, not to become dirty and soiled along with them, but to point them to the Savior. There should be a difference among those who know Christ.

I do want my words to be seasoned with grace. I do want the thoughts I have to be pure and clean, even in the words that reside in my mind. I do want to learn to keep my temper in check. I certainly do not think that we Christians have any business trying to justify the coarsening of our talk. I know that we all have struggles with our flesh, but it is appalling to me that there are people who call themselves Christians who feel no qualms about impure speech. May our talk be seasoned with praise. How could we possibly think that we can justify the casual use of coarse language in one moment and sing glorious praise of our awesome and holy God in the next? Not so.