If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.
Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
(Colossians 3:1-17 ESV)
I started to set up a structure to the rest of this series after my last post. I had planned on continuing on to verse 9 and I already have part of that post written up, but then I realized that there’s a topic in verse 8 that I really think I should cover in more depth: the issue of obscene talk.
At first I thought that the context of verse 8 meant obscene talk was angry speech towards another person. But then I realized that that’s only part of the problem. The main context of the second group of sins is that these are all sins that affect our social relationships with other believers. This may include being angry at them and yelling at them, but that’s not all there is to it. The real issue, like every other sin talked about thus far, is the heart.
The Bible has a lot to say on the subject of our speech. Let’s go to James 1:26: “If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless.” Whoa. That’s a pretty big statement. Bridling the tongue basically means that we keep a tight rein on our speech. This verse is a warning to us. We can think that all our external ceremonies and Bible reading and all that are true signs of saving faith. But, as Jesus said, “What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander” (Matt. 15:18-19). What comes out of our mouth is a true sign of our heart’s condition. James is telling us to watch that, because it’s a sign that we need to repent of sin. If we keep a tight rein on our speech, that’s an inward and outward action, and it’s a good sign.
Cursing Others
This connects with the idea of angrily yelling at and verbally abusing someone because, if that’s what we’re doing, it shows a lack of love in our heart towards our victim, which is not a good thing. That’s a sign that our heart is not in good condition. Again in James, it says, “No human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so” (James 3:8-10). Our tongue is a muscle that can be used for both great good and great evil. It can be used to bless and to curse. It can be used to praise God, and then turned around to wish evil on someone else. But it should not be used for both purposes. If we bless our Lord, we should also bless people with it because they are made in the image of God.
Vile Communication
The idea of “obscene talk” in Colossians 3:8 stems from Greek words meaning “shameful” or “vile communication.” The King James Version actually uses the word “filthy.” Another verse that talks about this is Ephesians 4:29: “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” That word, “corrupting,” means “rotten” or “worthless.” So what these verses are saying is not to speak in a vile, disgusting way because it’s worthless and unbecoming.
I think one good verse on this topic is Ephesians 5:4: “Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.” Crude joking, at least, is pretty easy to define. Again with Greek words, this one has the idea of vulgar witticism. And I wanted to be sure of that because that's what I was thinking of, but I didn't know if there was some cultural idea I wasn't seeing. So, vulgar jokes are a form of vile communication.
But what about swearing? This is one of the arguments raging in Christian circles today between the people who want to make the gospel culturally relevant and the people who know the gospel is always relevant in every culture if we preach it right (guess which camp I’m in). I tend to think that swearing falls into this category too, since even unbelievers know that those words aren’t appropriate in decent settings. They bleep out certain words on television, which can honestly be one of the vilest cultural cesspools, at least in our country. And to think I want to work in media. But I’m not going to be legalistic about it. I know genuine, loving Christians who let words slip once in a while. I think the real question is whether or not using such words is really profitable.
Since this post is starting to get long, I’m going to stop here and talk a bit more on this topic next time, since I think it’s incredibly important (the Bible seems to think so too) and there’s still a bit more to say.
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