Online Sermons
Lesson #8 - Profanity
Series: Taming The TongueLesson #8 – Profanity
1. Have you noticed an increase in profanity?
“The obscenities of yesterday’s high school locker rooms are now heard on today’s grade-school playgrounds.”
To what do you attribute this onslaught of vulgarity?
~ Television & Hollywood (sit-coms & movies)? … Talk Radio? … The workplace? … Music? … Sports? … Politics?
~ Has social media (internet … facebook … tweeting … etc.) contributed to an increase in profanity?
Does an up-tick in vulgarity come because we’re experiencing a “dumbing-down” of speech in general.
A Wayne State University study revealed that college students use one off-color word for every fourteen words spoken.
2. How would you define profanity?
Profane comes from the Latin profanus, which means before (outside) the temple. i.e., not sacred.
It refers to speech that lacks a reverence toward God.
Ex.20:7a / You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain… cf. Ps.96:609
“To treat a holy person, place, or institution with irreverence, as if it were common.” – cf. Lev.19:8
Paul was falsely accused of such (desecration) when he brought Greeks into the temple. cf. Acts 24:6 with Acts 21:28
Peter responded to a visionary voice saying, “I have never eaten anything unholy (profane) and unclean” (Acts 10:14).
Distinguish between profanity, vulgarity and cursing or swearing?
All have come to describe: a foul-mouth … dirty-talk … coarse language … smutty-speech … crudeness, lewdness and indecency.
Vulgarity is the introduction of common street language into a civilized and cultured society.
Why do people use vulgarities?
To express disdain? … To blow off steam? … To punctuate? … To retaliate? … To gain social acceptance? …
To get a laugh? … To mock a social taboo? … To offend the prudish? … To send subtle seduction signals?
Arthur Schopenhauer writes: Will minus intellect constitutes vulgarity.
Are people who use vulgarity lacking in vocabulary or are they simply lazy with their verbiage?
Col.3:8 / …Put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander and abusive speech from your mouth.
Eph.5:4 / There must be no filthiness and silly talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting…
3. How should we respond?
Should we just cringe and bear it?
Have we become de-sensitized? Do we no longer blush? Does such language no longer offend us?
Do we try to justify vulgar speech?
Didn’t Paul use the word dung (rubbish) in Phlip.3:8?
Didn’t Jesus use rough language to describe the scribes and Pharisees? – cf. Mt.23
Are we content to let the world shape us into its mold? – cf. Rom.12:2
Do you find yourself saying things today that you would have never said in the past?
4. Can we recapture purity of speech?
Let the words of my and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight / Ps.19:14
Is foul language a matter of the heart? – cf. Prov.4:23
