On Cursing
I’ve always learned in church that cursing is bad. I’ve even taught that lesson myself in youth group. I remember it well because I poured over the Bible for texts condemning cursing. Here’s one of my favorites from James 3:5-8:
5 Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. 6 The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.
7 All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, 8 but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.
“It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison” - man, that sounds serious. When I was younger, I never cursed out loud and rarely inside my head but it wasn’t a trait I felt necessary to condemn in others since I thought these were sincere words coming out of their mouths and, unless you change their hearts, stopping them from cursing isn’t really doing much of anything except suppressing their ability to genuinely communicate with you.
But let’s get back to that deadly poison. When people curse out of anger, intending to “curse” someone or break someone down, not only does anger poison your own body but it kind of makes your immediate environment vile when you spew those words out of your mouth. Plus, it’s not classy and who wants to be friends with an unclassy slimeball?
For me, I’m not a great speaker to begin with. As an introvert, I’m usually not the one carrying the conversation unless I have to. I much prefer digesting everyone’s thoughts in my mind, packaging it all nicely in my brain and then delivering my short spiel at the end. This form of conversational participation requires a great deal of time in crafting words to say but very few moments actually speaking. I notice that when I start using curse words, it drastically inhibits my ability to articulate what I really intend to say.
So is all cursing off the table for Christians?
At my workplace, a great number of people curse and I’ve slowly increased my cursing, not so much out loud but under my breath and in my head. I’m easily influenced by other people’s bad habits and so I’ve always had to put on the self-control stopper to help myself remain on the road to trying to be holy as God desires…and it’s seriously hard sometimes. It’s hard because when it’s late at night, the wine is out on the table, and the VPs are cursing it off a storm, I want to be a part of that camaraderie. I don’t want to be the stiff necked religious person because I really don’t think Jesus would have acted that way but I don’t think Jesus would start chucking cursing grenades either. This is where coming to Jesus is important, coming to Jesus and asking for guidance because you realize you’re incapable of doing it without Him. Duh, the Christian life lesson.
Paul cursed in the Bible, whenever you see him say feces, dung, garbage or rubbish, he’s basically saying shiz. Check out Philippians 3. I think it’s pretty appropriate. He is using the word to get a message across that is not obscene, slanderous or used to break down or destroy a person. Fair game. If you use profanity in the same way, where your motivation is to bring people together and help others understand the magnitude of God over us, fair game to you as well.
Cursing in humor is also something I think is fine. You’re bringing laughter in the world and most comedy sketches or personal jokes incorporating cursing oftentimes highlights the absurd ways in which we replace regular words with profanity. It makes light of our own idiocies, kind of like Dave Chapelle and his “racist” comedy sketches.
As Christians, we often the miss the point. I do it all the time. I reflect on my day once in a while and realize in hindsight that I did nothing that glorified God even though I followed all the “rules”. Where is your heart today? Love God through loving his people.
http://reformandrevive.com/2009/07/28/wtfwjd-on-christian-cursing/
