Is swearing really a sin, or just an outdated cultural taboo? Following the lead of men like Mark Driscoll (who is known as “the swearing pastor”) and many popular youth speakers, more and more preachers have added coarse language to their preaching in an effort to be “relevant” to the world. 

The current trend toward crude speech in the church is, in my estimation, a sad example of compromise and disobedience. In this article I will seek to show from Scripture that coarse language and profanity are both expressly forbidden in Scripture, and it is possible in any given culture to identify which words fall into these categories. 

Traditionally there have been two categories of foul language: profanity and obscenity. Profanity is speaking of holy things in a profane way – such as using the Lord’s name in vain, or terms such as damn or hell as expletives. Obscenities are words that are obscene – that is, words that refer to excrement, parts of the human anatomy, or bodily functions in a coarse or crude way. 
Profanity
Those who argue that it is the culture that determines which words are bad words are half right. With regard to obscenity it is true that cultural norms determine the cleanness or dirtiness of a word. Profanity, however, is not culturally determined. Profanity is the practice of speaking of any holy thing, or anything of great, serious, eternal significance, and using it in a low, common way. And it is God, not the culture, who determines which things are high and holy. 

When people say, “Oh my God!” as nothing more than an expression of surprise or some other emotion, and God is really the last thing on their mind, they are profaning the Holy One. That is a serious sin. The third commandment is “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.” The word vain means “empty.” To utter the name of God when one is not actually referring to God is to use His name in an empty way.

God’s name can be taken in vain by profaning anything that God has set forth as holy. Taking something that has eternal significance and reducing it down to meaninglessness is profanity. Hell, for example, is a staggering, fearsome, eternal reality. God has revealed that hell and damnation are very, very serious matters. To use those terms, then, as empty expletives is to make meaningless something God says is important. It is a form of mocking God and His judgments. 

It is noteworthy that when even the secular culture, when they invent expletives, makes them out of the most sacred and holy concepts. They are taken from the holy Scriptures. When a person wants to be profane he does so by taking the greatest realities and reducing them to a meaningless, empty expletive. The naturalists claim to believe that the greatest realities in existence are physical things, such as the stars. But when they hit their thumb with a hammer you never hear them yell out, “Oh sun, moon and stars!” Or get angry and say, “What in the name of Mt. Everest do you think you’re doing? You stupid trees-in-the-forresting, Pacific Oceaning, galaxying, super-novaing…” Why does no one swear like that? Because the whole point of profanity is to take what is holy and reduce it to the profane. The sun, moon and stars, and Mount Everest, and the Pacific Ocean are not holy things. You can’t make them profane, because they already are profane, temporal, earthly things. It is interesting that even the world seems to know intuitively what is truly holy. If you cut someone off in traffic, he might scream something about our precious Lord being consigned to eternal hell. But you never hear someone yell out his window, “You Buddha reincarnated as a toad!”  They will say things about Jesus Christ, but you never hear anyone say, “Oh Mohammad!”  In order for the profanity to be profanity it has to start with something that is truly holy. 

Obscenity
Unlike profanity, obscenity is a culturally defined phenomenon. The issue is not the subject matter but the actual word that is used. Even in a very conservative church a pastor can, in a Sunday morning sermon with children present, speak about “the marriage bed,” “excrement,” or even “reproductive organs” without raising an eyebrow. Using vulgar words for those same concepts, however, would be tremendously offensive. 

The question, then, is, “What makes a vulgar word a vulgar word?” The answer is, the vulgar words are the words that are used by vulgar people in vulgar ways. When evil, sinful men speak in degrading ways about women, they use certain terms. And they use those terms on purpose. People who commit violence and immorality with their bodies also want to express the same things in their words. The task of developing a list of words that are crude is as easy as listening to sex offenders in prison discussing women and comparing the vocabulary to that which is used by a national news anchor. Words that are used frequently in R-rated movies or pornographic magazines but that are never used in G-rated movies or children’s books or in polite company are the dirty words. 

Ephesians 4:29 Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths

Ephesians 5:3-4 But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people.  4 Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving.

Paul gives three descriptions of the kinds of words we are not to use: unwholesome, foolish talk, and coarse joking. 

The word unwholesome (sapros) means worthless – specifically, worthless because of being rotten. It is usually used in the New Testament to refer to things that are decomposing. Paul had plenty of options at his disposal to put bad speech in a negative light. But the imagery he picks is one of something that has become rotten or putrid. It is not only unkind words that are forbidden, but also ugly, dirty, rancid words.

The word translated foolish talk (morologia) refers to the stupid, senseless, profitless, ribald joking around that is down in the gutter – pornography of the mouth. It is the filthy, wasteful, worthless talk of the fool.

The word translated coarse joking (eutrapelia) literally means “to turn easily.” It is the skill of being able to turn anything into something dirty. It is a more sophisticated term. It carries the implication of clever, intelligent, witty – but dirty humor. 

Whether it comes out as vulgar, crude indecency with 4-letter words, or clever, witty double-entendre - it is still the same irreverent, sub-Christian, vile product of a garbage can mind that violates and contaminates the listener with the same slime in the heart that contaminates real love that falls well short of the Col.4:6 standard of beautiful, pure speech seasoned with salt and full of grace. 

Contextualization vs. Compromise

It is sometimes argued that coarse language must be used in order to reach the world with the gospel. Just as Paul became all things to all men (1 Cor.9:22) so must we contextualize the gospel so that it is understandable to the specific culture we are trying to reach. Speaking in “Christianese” that is incomprehensible to the unbeliever will render him unable to accept the gospel. And using speech that is too “goody-goody” may cause some to disregard the message because we appear to square or prudish. 

The strategy of causing the world to be more interested in our message by using vulgar speech is a mistake. It moves beyond contextualization (a good thing) into compromise (a sin). Contextualization of must only be in areas of morally neutral customs, such as food preferences. Regarding moral issues, however, we must “come out from among (the world) and be separate (from unbelievers)” (2 Cor.6:15-18) and “have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.” (Eph.5:11) And, as shown above, profane and obscene speech is very much a moral issue. There should be a stark, immediately noticeable contrast between us and the world in our speech. (Php.2:15) Our efforts to win their friendship and movement toward them must never occur in the areas of their vices. (Jas.1:27) Accommodation is good in areas of tradition and culture that are completely neutral, but must never involve areas of morality and purity. 

Clean language is not incomprehensible. The writers of children’s books are capable of communicating even to very young children without reverting to four letter words. Nor is the relevance of our message dependent upon crude speech. Rather, the relevance of the gospel is based on the reality of sin and guilt, the inevitability of God’s judgment, and the availability of forgiveness. 

Some who have argued in favor of using off-color language have contradicted themselves by saying on the one hand that the words are not really dirty anymore because most people are no longer offended, and on the other hand that we must use such terms to avoid being considered prudish or square. If the words really are clean and pure, then using them will do nothing to disabuse our listeners of the idea that we are prudish. But if the words have some shock value, that shock comes from the very fact that even people in the world realize those words are questionable in polite company. 

Those who are inclined to use vulgar language should consider carefully how often we are warned in Scripture about our speech, and how severe those warnings are. There are many, many warnings about being profane, impure, vulgar, violent, irreverent, unkind, inconsiderate, or offensive – but never about being too prudish. 
Do you struggle with swearing?
The best cure for swearing is not to try not to think about bad words. The harder you try not to think of a word the more you will think about it (try not to think about a pink elephant right now). 

A much better approach is to think deeply about the words. Resolve to do that each time a swear word comes into your mind. If you think of the word “damn” or “hell,” stop what you are doing, take a few minutes and think carefully about damnation. Think about what it would be like to be there forever without any hope of ever leaving. Think about unsaved loved ones going there, and about the fact that you were a heartbeat away from going there prior to becoming a Christian. Think about the God who sends people there as an expression of His furious wrath over sin.

If a sexual term comes into your mind take some time to think through God’s high and holy and beautiful purposes for sex. If an anatomical term comes to mind, think through the fact that you are wonderfully and fearfully made, and the significance of the image of God in man. If a term associated with uncleanness and filthiness comes to mind, contemplate spiritual uncleanness and the enormity of the price the Lord paid to cleanse it.

If you resolve to do that, then each time a swear word comes into you mind it will become nothing but a memory cue to set you to thinking on things above. And when Satan sees that his efforts to pollute your mind are backfiring, he will likely give up (either that, or your flesh will stop thinking of swear words just out of pure laziness – because it doesn’t want to go through the effort of spending 5 minutes thinking about eternal hell).