Clean Up Your Language?

[Steve Myers] A question came in about taking God's name in vain. It is something so common in our society today. It seems just to be everywhere—common talk, just careless the way people speak. And yet the Bible is very clear about the importance of honoring God. Exodus 20:7 says very clearly, "You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. The Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain."

[Darris McNeely] Now this is talking about the Third Commandment, Steve. And you know people wouldn't go around cursing their mother and father and uttering all kinds of vile words in anger with their mother and father's name before or behind those words. And yet you hear this all the time with people talking and taking God's name in vain. It reminds me of the verse in Exodus 21:17. It says, "He who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death." And then it says in Deuteronomy 27:16, "Cursed is the one who treats his father or his mother with contempt." We wouldn't do that with our own earthly, physical parents. Why do it with our spiritual Father? Why do that out of anger or whatever the reason might be, just because our vocabulary might be short in some way?

[Steve Myers] It's interesting throughout the Bible it does talk about how if we are God's people, we claim to be Christians, we're called by His name. So this is our own family we're talking about here. You know, God loves us and He cares for us. He's a loving Father. He's not an abusive Father. And so we've got to honor Him. And how do we show that? How do we reflect that? Do we do that not only in the way that we talk, because it's one thing to curse and to swear and all those kinds of things, but how do we act? You know, what is our behavior? Is our behavior reflective of not taking God's name in vain? If we're Christians, we can't take that title in vain. And so, it's really quite an all-encompassing concept when you really begin to think about it.

[Darris McNeely] Taking God's name in vain and uttering curse words in and around the name of God really does hurt one's character. A lot of times there's anger. There's bitterness. There's just a lack quite frankly, a lack of reading. Think about that. If you have to deal with it, remove yourself from it. If it's part of your everyday language think deeply about what it's doing to your character and also what it's doing to others who hear—your own family, your children, other people who have to put up with that. Takes God's name in vain—it violates a law of God, the 3rd Commandment. And it's just not right.

[Steve Myers] Let's not take it lightly. That's BT Daily. We'll see you next time.