Mountain Musings: What Does it Mean to Be Pure Part III

 

⁴ Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. Ephesians 5:4 English Standard Version

               My words hung in the air as an awkward silence filled our backyard. My father looked over with a bit of grin, saying, “Well, I guess they taught you something in the Army.”

               I’d come home on leave between assignments and offered to help my father with a minor chore in the backyard. As things would have it, I smashed my thumb and let out a stream of expletives that would have made a sailor blush. I think the grass still does not grow where I was standing. I mumbled some sort of apology, and we went on with the task. I was mortified and my father mildly amused.

               I never heard my father use foul language. I never even heard him say, gosh, darn, shoot, frickin, gol-dang, heck, or any of the other substitute curse words. I always knew when he was mad. He knew how to make sure I understood when he was angry and why he was angry in very precise language. He just did not need to emphasize by swearing. He was always circumspect in his speech. In our modern era of free-wheeling and unconstrained speech, he was a throwback, harking back to a time when men eschewed vulgar speech, especially in public. Some might have thought he imbibed too deeply in the historical narrative of his work as a history professor; but, he embraced a higher standard, taking scriptures about speech to heart.

²³ Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. ²⁴ Put away from you crooked speech, and put devious talk far from you. Proverbs 4:23-24

               In this passage, the writer reminds me that how I speak directly reflects the state of my heart, or how I think. When I smashed my thumb helping my father, I revealed where my heart was. In those moments of pressure, we open a window into who we are. Though my father treated the incident with his characteristic sense of humor, I knew that at his core he was disappointed. He hoped for something better than crass speech from his oldest son.

⁴ Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. ⁵ For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Ephesians 5:4-5

Paul reminds us that our speech ought to be gracious and we should eschew foolish talk and crude joking. It seems as if our culture embraces the slightly off-color. We revel in the crude and crass. Standup comics enjoy making their audience squirm, often descending into vulgarity, seeming to work hard to outdo one another in breaking cultural norms. As Christians, those who’ve embraced a higher calling, we should not encourage or join in such behavior. God calls us to a higher standard, one which reflects His holiness, and this calls us to thoughtfully consider our speech.

As men, as leaders both in the home and in the body, we should carefully consider our speech. Our speech ought to reflect the highest standards. Those of us who aspire to and attain public ministry should especially guard our speech. Sadly, we seem to not only give such speech a pass, we encourage it. It is both distasteful and reckless to allow such callow speech as “frickin, heck, shoot, and gosh” to echo down from the pulpit or other public forum. A recent article in the New York Times, a secular newspaper, identified the coarsening of language in the public pronouncements of the evangelical community. It should cut us to the heart when such an organization recognizes the secularization of our speech. Even the Army, a group not known for being particularly moral, recognized the inherent laziness of the constant use of vulgarity to make a point. Officers and senior NONCOMs who had the potty-mouth, were encouraged to clean up their act and become more articulate. We should do likewise. As believers, singularly and corporately, we ought to lead the charge toward better speech. We can clearly say what we think without resorting to crass vulgarity. After all, our savior was quite clear when we called the Pharisees, “You whitewashed tombs.”