11.23.25 Deleting Expletives

Topical: How Christians should speak as opposed to the world

Introduction: “Gone with the Wind” (1939) made headlines for being the first feature film to use an expletive.

On March 2nd, 2025, the film “Anora” won the award for “Best Picture” at the 2025 Academy Awards. That film used, as adult Ralphie called it in “A Christmas Story”: THE WORD, The Big One, the Queen-mother of dirty words” 479 times in 2 hours and 19 minutes. (That’s about once every 20 seconds).

We are living in a time of rampant verbal evil. Sins of the Tongue of every variety are as old as human language, but at least in our lifetimes we’ve seen a recent explosion of “corrupt communication” in the public spheres. Particularly in the use of expletives has the descent accelerated. Studies have been done showing each successive generation, starting with the Baby Boomers, swears far more frequently and in wider contexts than the generation before. Your Grandpa (and mine) that might have swore when he hit his thumb with a hammer probably didn’t preface or conclude every phrase or sentence with a four-letter word. Many teenagers today use expletives instead of periods, exclamation marks, or capital letters!

We need look no further than the “leaders” of our country as proof positive that expletives have gained popularity and resonance. Let’s not delude ourselves about the “good ole days”: Profanity and vulgarity, among the other verbal sins, have always been used widely, but at the very least in the past there was some effort made to keep this language from public view. To put it in “Wizard of Oz” terms, it’s not that I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore: We couldn’t even find Kansas on a map at this point.

Trump has used in public basically every word we could not allow any of our children to speak even in private. Earlier this year, when his press secretary was asked about “using an expletive to insult a former cabinet officer”, Caroline Leavitt responded this way: “One of the things the American people love the most about this president is he often says what they were thinking but lack the courage to say themselves. Yesterday at this podium, you heard President Trump express frustration, even anger, about the previous administration's policies - many of which have led to the crisis our country is currently facing, and that this President is focused on fixing." (Talk about a positive spin on that)

But it’s not just Trump: Our entire political establishment has been overrun with this. Here’s another couple of news stories about specifically Jasmine Crockett, a Democratic representative from Texas, and generally about the Democrat party as a whole. (Read some of the paragraph to the right)

The open and accepted use of profanity and vulgarity spans the political spectrum, the educational spectrum, the economic spectrum, even the age spectrum. From Donald Trump to Gavin Newsom to Jasmine Crockett to Elon Musk to mayors and doctors and teachers and mechanics and day laborers and stay-at-home moms and students and ALL forms of media, our ears and our culture are being flooded with language that we ourselves as Christians cannot repeat.

But before we rail against the world, ask yourself: “Why is it wrong to use these words?” I’ve heard it said that some days you’re the hammer, and others the nail. I’m gonna add one to that thought: Somedays you’re the thumb! And some days you really, really want to express yourself using the “queen mother of all dirty words” and all her verbal kinfolk.

Those of you who have spent time in the Scriptures know there is plenty of Biblical ammunition for this fight. We’re told for instance in 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.”

Or what about 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.”

It’s not enough anymore to just ask folks to “watch their mouths”: They don’t know why they should do this! Can we explain to our friends and neighbors what “corrupting talk” is, and why it is corrupting? Can we define what is filthy, foolish, or crude?

What makes a word or a phrase profane or vulgar? And why must we hold the line against the world on this front?

That’s the specific question I want to help us with this morning. (Title Slide)

I hope to do that in three parts. 1. Let’s distinguish profanity/vulgarity from other verbal sins, just so we can see what we’re dealing with.

2. Let’s carefully define what it means for a word to be deemed profane or vulgar.

3. Let’s conclude by thinking through why we use these words, and how God’s word shows us a better path.

Verbal Sins and Expletives (two-sided chart, specifically condemned speech on left, categorically condemned speech on the right.

Some condemned speech n the Bible is easily defined:

Slander (1 Pet. 2.1; Col. 3.8) & Gossip (2 Cor. 12.20; 1 Tim. 5.13) (Also, “evil-speaking” Titus 3.2)

Blasphemy (speaking evil of God) (1 Tim. 1.13; James 2.7; Rev. 16.9

Grumbling (1 Cor. 10.10; Phil. 2.14-15; James 5.9)

Lying/Bearing False Witness/Fraud (Rev. 21.8; Ephesians 4:25; Ex. 20.16; Lev. 19.11, 35-36)

Careless Words (Matt. 12.36-37)

An Overabundance of Words (Prov. 21.23; 13.3; 17.27; 10.19)

There may be other specific forms of condemned speech, but you can see where these are all pretty easy to define AND they are consistent across languages (more on this in a moment): Lying is fundamentally the same in English as it is in Japanese, and a person can talk too much in any language!

Other speech infractions are more difficult to define:

Note how all of these references are a little less easy to define out of hand.

Colossians 3:8 “But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.”

What does it mean for speech to be “obscene”?

Proverbs 4:24 “Put away from you crooked speech, and put devious talk far from you.”

What does “crooked” and “devious” mean here?

Proverbs 8:13 “The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate.”

Proverbs 10:32 “The lips of the righteous know what is acceptable, but the mouth of the wicked, what is perverse.”

What is “perverted”, or “perverse”?

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.”

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.”

See what I’m getting at: What do these words/phrases mean?

So, what do these words mean?

Eph. 4.29: “corrupting” [Gk. sapros]: rotten, worthless, bad, as in a diseased tree (Mt. 7.17-18)

Col. 3.8: “obscene” [Gk. aischrologia}: abusive language, shameful

Eph. 5.4: “filthiness” [Gk. aischros]: shameful, dishonest, obscenity Eph. 5.4: “foolish” [Gk. morologia]: foolish or stupid Eph. 5.4: “crude joking” [eutrapelia]: coarse jesting, illiciting humor from shameful/corrupt sources

Prov. 8.13: “perverted” [tah-pu-kah]: perversity, opposite, reverse, synonymous with evil.

So, simply from this, we can start to build an understanding of the sorts of words/phrases that would fit what we commonly consider as “expletives”: Words that are rotten, shameful, obscene, perverse.

I also know how we are: We like specifics, lists, details. So, the best thing to do, I suppose, is just put up a list of all the profanities and vulgarities we have in English and once we agree to the list we can commit to not saying those words, right? WRONG: Putting up such a list is how one gets FIRED from preaching, not commended for it.

But I actually just raised another complicating factor if you were listening carefully: “in English”: This is an important consideration, because unlike lying and slander and blasphemy, which do not change no matter the language, once you switch from English to another language the profanities and vulgarities change too! Ever watch a show produced in England or another English-speaking country and from the context you can tell that what they are saying is some form of expletive, but the word itself didn’t offend you at all?

That’s because there is a cultural element to this as well: Certain words become expletives, and certain words fade from this understanding. There are words and phrases that 100 years ago weren’t forbidden, but today they are!

So, we’re not going to be able to get by with “Well, just don’t be perverse or vulgar.” We’re going to have to define those two ideas.

What qualifies a word as an expletive? (Slide: Split-screen between profane and vulgar) Oddly enough, one of the best resources I found on this was Babbel.com. You know, the people who sell the language-learning software, you’ve probably heard it on the radio. Let’s think about what is happening with each of these two ideas.

A General Definition: Words that Violate Taboo

Babbel.com: "For a word to qualify as a swear word, it must have the potential to offend, crossing a cultural line into taboo territory. As a general rule, swear words originate from taboo subjects...”

Taboo topics can be thought of as “things that are too high, or too low” to be spoken of in public or flippantly.

Lower subjects that are almost universally taboo include Death, Disease, Excrement, Sex, or the private areas of the human body. Most cultures have an offensive word/phrase for one’s backside, for instance.

Think about it: How many “expletives” do we have for a person’s shoulders? How about their ears or someone sneezing? We don’t have “expletives” for those subjects because they are not private or taboo to mention in public.

“things that are lower” usually deals with the private actions/areas of the human body or its destruction.

Interesting: Where in the Bible do you see death (and with it the possibility of disease), nakedness, and procreation all mentioned? Genesis 3 and the introduction of SIN into the world!

This linguistic artifact from the Garden is surprisingly consistent across cultures!

Higher subjects that are likewise almost universally taboo are religious/spiritual in nature. Any time that which is high and holy (to a culture) is violated, it is considered a swear word.

What changes here across cultures is the religion or deity being denigrated.

Predominantly Catholic countries have profanities that typically relate to Mary or Jesus.

Slurs in cultures that practice ancestor worship would have to do with one’s ancestors.

In Jewish culture, where dogs are unclean and therefore abhorrent, to call someone a “dog” was a huge deal, whereas in America we say things like “What’s up, dawg?” and no one bats an eye.

So, with these two definitions in mind, we can understand more clearly what was meant by the Biblical authors when they described certain items of speech as obscene, shameful, or perverse.

Profanity: Bringing the Holy down to the common.

“Profanity”, from the word “profane”, comes from the Latin [profanus], a compound word we talked about recently in our Leviticus class. “Pro” means BEFORE and “fanum” = TEMPLE. Literally, it means “outside the temple”, and it refers to that which is defiled and unholy being brought inside to the holy or sacred space.

To profane, then, means to bring the holy in contact with the common or even the unholy. Did your parents have any really nice china or at least some glassware or ceramic that as a kid you knew better than to touch? Maybe it was the cake knife from their wedding, or a vase from her grandparents, you know, something “sacred”.

Profanity is like taking that “sacred” object (at least to your family), and using it to catch used motor oil, or unstop a toilet in your house, or a bucket to build a sandcastle.

This is the easier of the two to define in scripture, because God forbids this Himself on a number of occasions.

Exodus 20:7 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.”

Leviticus 19:12 “You shall not swear by my name falsely, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord.”

Perhaps the best place to see this is Ecclesiastes 5:2 “Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few.”

In short, remember your place, and speak accordingly. Do not take God’s name into your mouth in a disrespectful or flippant way. This is taking what is holy and using it for common or base purposes. This is profanity. What right do you have to use God’s name to punctuate your own sentences? Will you cry out “Oh My God” even though you are NOT PRAYING, NOT PRAISING, and NOT thinking about Him at all? May it never be!

Oh, while we’re at it: Is it any less evil to do that to the name of Jesus? Jesus, the one human being who ever lived to maturity and never sinned, who gave His life as a sacrifice to save humanity from their sins, the KING OF KINGS and LORD OF LORDS, what right do you have to utter His name when you get blown up in Minecraft, or commenting on the high price of eggs? Will you exclaim “Jesus Christ”, His name and His title, when someone pulls out in front of you in traffic?

One final thing: How can we use “Heaven” and “Hell”, the eventual end destinations of every human soul, either to their glory or their shame, as mere verbal punctuation? Jesus died to grant us access to Heaven: Don’t talk about it lightly or flippantly! Jesus died to save us from Hell: Hell isn’t a joke, or an expression, or a expletive! We must stop talking about those places as if they are light topics. Save that for Narnia or Middle-Earth.

Vulgarity: Putting the Unclean

If one form of expletive is bringing what is holy down to the common conversational level, then the other form is the other side of that same coin: Bringing up to the common level what is unholy, unclean, or best left private.

Vulgarity comes from the Latin “vulgaritas”, meaning “the multitude” or the common people, as distinguished from those things/ways of the upper classes of society. It came to mean that which is meant for lower levels of society, and then later for those things that are lower in our estimation or in the attention we give them in the public spaces.

If profanity is like taking the “sacred” objects and doing ordinary things with them, then vulgarity is like taking an object that is dishonorable, and using it in contexts for which it does not belong.

Imagine taking your toilet bowl brush and using it to stir a pot of soup on the stove. Or just go ahead and make your pot of soup in the toilet, and then serve it to your family.

I know that’s gross. It’s vile. It’s disgusting. It’s abhorrent. It’s obscene. It’s supposed to be gross, because that is what is happening when we utilize vulgarities in our language.

When we use expletives that refer to the private areas of the human body or the private actions of the human body, such as defecation, urination, or the sexual union and all of its variants, we are opening our mouths and allowing vulgarity to spew forth. It’s verbal vomit, and all of your listeners would appreciate it if you wouldn’t vomit all over them with your vulgarities.

Often, our parents responses to our vulgarities in speech involve some form of “You shouldn’t have let that gross word exit your mouth” right?

Anyone ever heard the phrase “Would you kiss your mother with that mouth?” What’s the idea? You’ve allowed a vulgar (gross, vile, abhorrent, obscene) word or phrase to come out of your mouth, and now you are corrupted!

Anyone else in here have their mouth washed out with soap? If you remember, that’s what happened to little Ralphie in “A Christmas Story” right? You know, that does exactly zero to actually prevent expletives from coming out right? But what’s the point of that particular little ritual? We’ve allowed some form of “corrupt communication” (the KJV of Eph. 4.29) to come out of our mouths, and therefore our mouths require cleaning!

As Christians we not only respect the holy, but we keep that which is private or unclean in their proper contexts, and we don’t use those things to flavor or punctuate our conversation.

Let’s look a bit closer at Ephesians 5:3–5 “But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. 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.”

No “filthiness”, no impurity is to be present in the Christian, especially in their speech!

Remember how Jesus put it in Matthew 12? Matthew 12:33–37 ““Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.””

If any of you were to come up and greet me, and I noticed your hands were defiled with all manner of unspeakable substances or fluids, there’s a 100% chance I’m NOT interested is shaking hands!

Likewise, if you have adorned your words with references to fecal matter, the sexual union, or urine, there’s a 100% chance I’m NOT going to pay attention to the substance (if any) of your words.

Why We Use Expletives (And Why We Shouldn’t)

Catharsis:

“Most of the time, swearing is an emotive reaction. When we’re frustrated, surprised or angry, cursing offers an emotional release. Experiments have even shown that swearing increases the body’s ability to endure pain.” (The Science of Bad Words: Why Do We Swear? - Babbel.com)

You’ve probably experienced this: You hit your thumb with a hammer, you cut yourself doing mechanic work or scrape your arm on a tree trunk, and what do you IMMEDIATELY want to do? Swear. Curse. Utter profanities and vulgarities. The more it hurts, the more we curse.

This covers emotional pain as well. When we’re hurt, saddened, terrified, or furious we’re tempted to speak through or over our filters and utter the most offensive words we can muster.

Speaking from personal (and regrettable) experience: Why do people sometimes gravitate towards music and movies where people use expletives? They say what we’d like to say, and there’s a form of release in that!

In short, somehow, using expletives makes us feel better. But is this a valid, authorized outlet for Christians?

First: Did Christ seek comfort or catharsis through the use of expletives?

No. Hebrews 4:15 “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.”

I know we could go directly to the last day of Jesus’ life and see that despite all the immense pain He suffered HE did not resort to profanity nor vulgarity, but I want you to think about His time as a carpenter and think about a bit of a more approachable example.

Do you want to suggest that Jesus the carpenter’s son didn’t ever make a bad hammer blow and strike His finger, or cut himself on a saw blade?

What about the pain in the tragic death of John the Baptist? What about the anger expressed as He drove the moneychangers from the Temple?

No. Our Savior felt what we feel, and more, and yet did not resort to profanity nor vulgarity.

It is as wrong for the Christian to seek comfort and catharsis through the use of expletives as it is to seek it in alcohol, illicit sexual unions, or abusing others.

Yes, it might make you feel better. But like all of these, it doesn’t make it right. It might make you feel better to sleep with your neighbor, or have a beer after work, or hit your annoying coworker up side the head, but we don’t, because it’s wrong.

Style and Emphasis:

"Curse words are not needed to insult someone — a simple “you’re ugly” usually gets the point across — but they do crank up the mean factor. They also act as rage concentrate: why explain to your neighbor that you hate him when an expletive would REALLY ramp up your expression?”

Later in the same article: “You can’t make a statement any more emphatic than by dropping an (expletive) where a more timid and prudent soul would use a boring old adverb. Swear words add emotion and urgency to otherwise neutral sentences.”

Most, if not almost all, of the most popular comedians in my lifetime have been men who utilized the “emotional concentrate” of expletives to their advantage. People like Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, Robin Williams, and even Bill Cosby on occasion. Perhaps no one wielded expletives more effectively than the late comedian George Carlin. If you’ve heard some of his material, 1. Don’t do that anymore, and 2. You know what I’m talking about. Case in Point: One of his most famous (and infamous) bits was on the “Seven Dirty Words”, which I cannot utter anywhere, much less here.

But is this right for Christians? Can we utilize expletives as “emotional concentrate”, as instant intensification of our words?

Let’s think more about this from a parallel idea: The actual swearing of oaths.

Oaths are sworn in order to intensify promises, correct? I can promise you something or give you my word, and that’s well and good, but if I swear an OATH about that same thing, well now you have some greater assurance that my original promise will be fulfilled.

James 5:12 “But above all, my brothers, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your “yes” be yes and your “no” be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation.”

For the Christian, their word, their promise is the highest, most intense form of assurance, because the Christian is bound by something higher than oaths: Truthfulness.

This mirrors Jesus’ own teaching on the subject: Matthew 5:34–37 “But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.”

Note that last phrase: “Anything more than this comes from evil.”

If we need to assist our words or statements or exclamations with a reference to defection or the sexual union or someone’s private anatomy, our words either need more work or they need not be said.

If we feel need to boost the power of our words with references to God’s condemnation of the wicked, is that something we should be saying at all?

Group Solidarity:

One last line from the article: “Among friends, swearing has a crucial social function: sharing a lexicon of words and breaking societal taboos is a form of bonding.”

Again, speaking from experience, this (along with the first) was/is the problem for me.

For instance, when I was a football coach, I (the Christian) immediately began using the language of the other coaches with which I worked. They used expletives, so I used expletives. Brethren: I went to church on Sunday and sang hymns to the Father, and then went to practice on Monday and let the vulgarities fly! But you know, I did have standards. I wouldn’t talk about God or Jesus or holy things. I avoided damaging the precious vase, and then took my toilet brush and stirred the soup with it. Was that Christ-like behavior? Was that letting my little light shine, or letting my corruption show?

I seem to remember a verse that captures my hypocrisy quite well: “From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.” (James 3.10) I told those same men I coached with that I was going into preaching. Wonder what they thought the sermons would be like, given my history with them.

You’ve probably know where this one is heading: What sort of “friends” do we have who are using this language? How is “breaking societal taboos” an acceptable form of “bonding” for us as Christians? How much “in the world, but not of the world” am I getting accomplished when I use their language?

Short answer: It isn’t. It’s not. And none. Instead, Paul tells us to reexamine our friends!

“Do not be deceived: Bad company ruins good manners.” (1 Cor. 15.33, also the letter “D” for our little kids memory verses)

Remind yourself of something else Paul wrote: Ephesians 4:17–19 “Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.”

You and I as Christians are to live “called out” lives. If the world around us increasingly uses profanity and vulgarity, let it be yet another area in which we as Christians distinguish ourselves, and to God be the glory.

Conclusion:

In Ezekiel 44.23 in the vision of the New Temple, and the new purified priesthood that would serve YHWH, God describes His priests in terms of what the original Levitical priesthood was to have done, but failed: “They shall teach My people the difference between the holy and the common, and show them how to distinguish between the unclean and the clean.”

As God’s priests today, you and I have to make the same sorts of discernments. We are those who cleanse and sanctify, not those who profane and pollute.

It is a simple fact that some words profane the holy. It is another that some words pollute by introducing the unclean.

Christians must never speak either of these sorts of words or phrases, expressions that profane and pollute, because we are called as God’s priests to a higher calling.

Paul once put it this way in Eph. 4.15: “speaking the truth in love”. And Expletives communicate neither.

Our little kids class on 2nd Sunday afternoons is all about memory verses, as you’ve seen already, and singing songs. One such song is this one, a beloved hit in Bible classes for years.

Friends and brethren: If we’re to tell little ones to “be careful little mouths, what you say”, then all of us had best remember why: “For the Father up above is looking down in love.”

God looks upon us now, and He sees and hears more than simply our verbal slipups. He hears our cries for mercy and grace. He hears our calls for His forgiveness. He sees and hears our appeals made to Him to be His children, His people when we are baptized into Christ, and He adds us to the number of the saved when we obey His gospel.

He forgives us of all our vulgarity and profanity, if we come to Him for forgiveness.

Will God see you obey the Gospel today? Will He see you be restored to faithful service to Him?

I don’t know. But that’s a question YOU can answer today.

Let’s find out together. If you would desire either of these things, make your way to the front while we stand and sing together.