Battling The Plague Of Profanity

Profanity is such an invasive influence; it’s a mind-maggot. It gnaws its way into the recesses of one’s thinking, and, if harbored, will make its presence spontaneously felt at the slightest provocation. This is what happens when we allow ourselves to be unnecessarily and regularly exposed to its vileness. We may soon begin to “cuss” mentally even if we don’t verbalize profanity outright. Someone complains, "but we can’t cut ourselves off from the whole of society.” While this is true, we can minimize our exposure to it.

Such was the case of a young genius who was a mere ten years old a few years ago.  Greg Smith had just entered college, and was talking about his TV-viewing habits in an interview on CBS’s 60 Minutes. “I have a rule,” he said, “that after three bad words, after three curse words, it [the TV] turns off.” Many folks probably assessed him as some sort of little “religious nut.” Yes, following that rule will definitely jettison a lot of TV. A recent study by the Parents Television Council found the use of profanity during the so-called “family hour” (8:00 to 9:00 Eastern time) is up 58 per cent from two years ago. And the nature of the language (e.g., sexual explicitness) is getting qualitatively worse.

The Bible is not silent on the proper use of human language. Paul wrote: “Let no corrupt speech proceed out of your mouth, but such as is good for edifying as the need may be, that it may give grace to them that hear” (Ephesians 4:29). The term rendered “corrupt” is the Greek sapros, akin to sepo (“to rot”). It denotes that which provides no good service. Our words in the presence of others ought to be such as build men up, rather than debasing them (cf. Job 4:4).

Again, the inspired apostle wrote, “…but now do ye also put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, railing, shameful [filthy - KJV] speaking out of your mouth…” (Colossians 3:8). The term signifies that which is base, characterized by shame. As a result of their studies of the Greek papyri, Moulton & Milligan suggested that the word generally denotes “foul or filthy” language (Vocabulary of the Greek New Testament, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1963, p. 14).

In battling the plague of profanity, there is a filtering device on the market called TVGuardian. This device attaches to your television set and VCR. With a pre-programmed “vocabulary,” it filters more than 90% of the profanity in most TV movies, videos, etc. It costs about $129.00, and is worth every penny of that amount! How refreshing it is to be able to relax occasionally, watch a program or movie, without being inundated with verbal trash.

—Mike Riley, Gospel Snippets