While I didn’t grow up in a “faith filled, Jesus following” context, I did grow up in a prevailing conservative religious culture. People went to church services out of duty and a community commitment rather than because of a faith in Jesus. Church attendance was more important than actually living out a faith in God. Following the rules and appearing to do right things was very important.

That meant that I grew up hearing a lot culturally about what we shouldn’t do so we didn’t upset God, but very little about what we should do to build a relationship with God.

One of the subjects on the ‘do not do’ list that featured more often than others was bad language. Swearing, cussing for my American friends, taking God’s name in vain, were the two variations spoken of most. It was common knowledge that there were some words that couldn’t be uttered, although you got a small pass for them if done quietly, in private, or they popped out as a result of you being in extreme pain! Outside of those exceptions if we did say them, or even mouth them, we got in a lot of trouble if there was a religiously conservative person nearby. When I was younger I didn’t necessarily know what the words meant (Im still not always sure I do today) but I knew what the telling off was if I indulged.

It’s worth mentioning that there were three main bad words when I was younger. Sorry for making you think about them but to use a scrabble analogy, they were the high scoring, or high scolding, words! Over time more were added to the list but it’s important to remember that a list does exist…somwehere.

When I came to faith and began to follow Jesus as 17/18 year old, my language wasn’t necessarily bad but I was no monk either. I knew I’d need to clean it up a bit if I was now a Jesus follower. So I did something that I found was common in young Christians. While I worked hard in trying not to say these ‘high scoring bad words’ I instead found other words that conveyed the emotion I was publicising when I was using the unutterables! In reality most of these new words sounded close to the ‘forbidden ones’ but because they weren’t those ‘actual’ words I reckoned I would be fine.

If ever there was a definition of missing the heart of the matter I had found it!!!!!

I remember somewhere around all of this time we first heard the famous Tony Campolo quote. Ironically my conservative upbringing has forced me to edit one part of his quote;

…while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don’t give a ****. What’s worse is that you’re more upset with the fact that I said **** than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night”

The reality was……he was right.

We did talk more about the fact that he said that word than the stark reality of poverty and injustice. Tony, I guess, was challenging our religious piety around these things and was challenging us to be the gospel, the good news, to those who needed good news.

However, we seem to have misunderstood him, or at least we applied what he said in a poor way.

Instead of being inspired to help the poor, and carry the gospel to the whole world with a burning white hot passion, we decided to stay as inactive to these things as we had before………..but we decided to start swearing!!

Aren’t we clever?

Now, I don’t know Tony, but I’m pretty sure his plan was not for us to start swearing, but to engage more fully in the Great Commission that we had been given by Jesus. When I think of what happened with this I’m reminded of when Jesus talked to the Pharisees about their commitment to giving 10% of their spices away but challenged their lack of commitment to justice, mercy and faithfulness. He follows up the challenge by saying “You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former”

Today I see many Christians of my era and younger using all sorts of language that I would never have expected. I don’t mean Christians who have just started following Christ and are in those early years of transformation, I mean Christians who have never swore before, who are doing it now. When I challenge why they are using those words I get thrown in the conservative religion group and told that I am missing the point.

I’m pretty sure I am not by the way!!

Religion in my experience tends to misunderstand and confuse heart issues from actions. God’s design and desire always starts in the heart. The scriptures remind us over and over again that God looks at the heart, He judges the heart, and that is what is core to Him. The actions that we do are linked to our heart position. If our heart is sick our actions will be sick that and conversely if our heart is healthy our actions will be healthy. It’s not always as immediately binary as that but over time that is the result. So, it’s not that actions aren’t important, they are simply the revealers of what lingers in our hearts.

Ok, with all of that said, what should we do about swearing? Well, I think we need to think differently. I think we absolutely need to stop thinking religiously, we need to stop focusing on behaviour modification, but let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater here. Let’s remind ourselves what the design of our words and speech were always meant to be. The Bible has a lot of say on this subject. I’m currently reading through proverbs and find verse after verse talking about our speech.

Those who guard their lips preserve their lives, but those who speak rashly will come to ruin. Proverbs 13:3

A fool’s mouth lashes out with pride, but the lips of the wise protect them. Proverbs 14:3

The hearts of the wise make their mouths prudent, and their lips promote instruction. Proverbs 16:23

A wicked person listens to deceitful lips; a liar pays attention to a destructive tongue. Proverbs 17:4

The one who has knowledge uses words with restraint, and whoever has understanding is even-tempered. Proverbs 17:27

From the fruit of their mouth a person’s stomach is filled; with the harvest of their lips they are satisfied. Proverbs 18:20

Gold there is, and rubies in abundance, but lips that speak knowledge are a rare jewel. Proverbs 20:15

As well as these references, Jesus talks about our speech and how it can defile us in the gospels, it’s mentioned in the 10 Commandments in relation to honour, James focuses on the power of the tongue in his letter, and we see it pop up on many other occasions throughout the scriptures.

In fact the first time we hear about speaking was its role in creation. God ‘spoke’ and the earth was created. Creation responds to Gods voice. Then Adam uses his voice to release identity to creation when he names the animals, and the woman. Right from the beginning our speech was meant to create and release identity. Later in the scriptures this thought is built on and we hear that our voice was meant to encourage, instruct, to build one another up, and preserve our lives. Each use of our words, our voice, was meant to release life.

Of course like anything in creation, the good is distorted. In Genesis 3 we hear how the enemy uses words to trick, deceive, lie, discourage and tear down truth. Each use is a distortion of what it was originally intended for. Again throughout the Scripture we see this pattern adopted and repeated time and time again.

Ther obvious conclusion here is that if we are following Jesus our words should be used to do what God had always intended them for. Whenever we choose to use them in any other way we are working against the way we were designed. This leaves us with a question;

When we swear, or using creative alternatives, are we creating, identifying, releasing life, encouraging, or building one another up?

I would defy anyone who trys to answer this with a yes.

Look, the reality is the subject of swearing is not even a small % of the issue here. Gods goal for our speech was so much more elevated than us ‘not swearing’. Not swearing is way too low a goal. Religion focuses on a minor as always and we have ended up spending time on writing blogs about swearing rather than focusing on how to recapture the beauty of using our words to release life.

So in conclusion………

STOP SWEARING……..

but dont stop there………

RELEASE LIFE……..