Shouldn’t that be the kind of speech that we commend in our sermons and public teaching? Shouldn’t we aspire to be like Jesus, about whom it was said “All spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were falling from his lips” (Luke 4:22)? The idea that we need to disciple God’s people in the proper use of profanity seems not only a fool’s errand but also a serious biblical error. For this reason, we would do well to teach God’s people not to loosen their expressions but to restrain them (Prov. 10:19).

For some time now, I have had a growing pastoral concern about Christians using foul language. This concern has been driven in no small part by well-known pastors who commend the use of foul language and who do so based on foul language that they perceive to be in scripture. They acknowledge that the Bible says that we should not be using certain kinds of language: “Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving” (Eph. 5:4). But they also allege that the Bible itself elsewhere uses the very language that it prohibits in Ephesians 5:4.

While this would suggest that scripture contradicts itself, they argue that there is no contradiction. Rather, they contend that in some biblical contexts filthy language is bad but in other contexts it’s good. Our job is to carefully discern the difference by reading how the Bible uses filthy language for good ends and then to imitate that usage and to avoid filthy language otherwise. The pastoral upshot would seem to be this. Yes, it’s wrong to use filthy, obscene, vulgar speech when doing so for bad reasons, but totally fine to use such language in service of a good cause (like preaching or denouncing evil people). Therefore, we too can make use of words like the S-word, the F-word, the D-word, etc. Even though the Bible condemns such language (Eph. 5:4), the Bible also authorizes such language in certain circumstances.

That is why those who hold this view use words like “Bulls—“ in sermons or words like the C-word when denouncing a liberal female pastor. Obscenity in the service of “godly” ends is just fine. If you can’t accept that, then you are linguistically benighted and are judging on some Victorian standard but certainly not on any biblical standard. At least that is how I understand the argument. What are we to make of this?

In my view, the whole argument relies on a questionable foundation. The argument assumes that the Bible makes use of the very language that it prohibits, and it assumes that a variety of English “cuss” words are the dynamic equivalent of Biblical terms. But as far as I can tell, these are assumptions that they have only asserted but have never demonstrated. And there are obvious problems with each assumption.

First, there is very little evidence to support the notion that biblical expressions are the semantic equivalent of our modern “cuss” words. The cussing pastors point to Paul’s use of a term like skubalon (“dung”) in Philippians 3:8 or to explicit prophetic denouncements such as “rags of menstruation” in Isaiah 64:6. And yet, the lexica do not gloss these expressions with terms that provoke the kind of offense that cuss words evoke. Dan Wallace has an entire article on Paul’s use of skubalon in Philippians 3:8, and concludes that it should not be rendered with the S-word.

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