We live in a world where cursing or cussing is all around us. It has become so prevalent that most people don’t even notice themselves using it or those around them. This wasn’t so in times past, when it was unacceptable to speak in such manners. While some people, like soldiers and sailors could get away with it, within their own working environment, such language wasn’t acceptable outside such groups.
That’s not to say that people always spoke properly before modern times. There has always been a problem with people saying things they shouldn’t. That problem probably goes back to Cain and Abel. To the people living in those times, the words that some used were probably as offensive, or even more so, than the words we find people using today. The only real difference is where that fits into culture. Today, swearing up a blue streak is considered much more normal than it was 20 years ago.
So, how did we get here? There’s no one simple answer for that. Like any other social condition, it comes about slowly and gradually. There are always those who will push the boundaries of what’s acceptable, working to move the line. One of the big influencers for this is entertainment. They can’t just depict normal life, as that is boring. So instead, they do things that are bigger than life. People see that and think that it is normal, adopting it in their own lives. Before long, something that was unacceptable has become not only acceptable, but the norm.
Each generation takes that a step further. They look at what their parents do and want to be different, if for no other reason than to establish their own identity. That often means doing things their parents would see as unacceptable. So, in the case of course language; what the parents might use sparingly, the children use regularly. Give it another generation or two, and those same words might attain the status of being considered normal speech, without any stigma attached to them.
Let’s Clarify Something
Although we use the words “cursing” and “cussing” interchangeably, they actually mean different things, especially in the Bible. Cussing is using foul language, cursing, in the Bible, is something bad coming upon the person. It is most often used as the opposite of blessing, especially when used in the context of God’s commandments.
I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may life. – Deuteronomy 30:19
To get a better understanding of cursing, we could look at Deuteronomy, chapter 28. There we find lists of the blessings that fall on those who obey God and the curses that fall on those who do not. Interestingly enough, there are about three times as many curses that fall on those who do not obey God, as there are blessings for those who do. The price of disobedience is high.
But there is another use of the word curse that applies to the Bible. That is to speak out a curse over someone. That’s what Zippor, king of the Moabites tried to do, hiring Balaam, a diviner, to speak a curse over the people of Israel (Numbers 22:4-24:25). The Moabites were afraid of Israel, after hearing what Israel did to the Amorites. Rather than suffer the same fate, they were willing to resort to spiritual means, even witchcraft, to curse Israel. Yet their plan didn’t work, as God would not allow Balaam to speak a curse over Israel.
As believers, we should never speak a curse over anyone. Rather, we are to speak blessings over them, even those who speak curses over us.
Bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you. – Luke 6:28
Believers and Cussing
Words are important, especially when we are speaking about spiritual things. Much of what we do in the spirit is by the words we speak. We pray, declare and bless with words. But we can also curse with those words as well, bringing death into a situation, rather than life.
Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit. – Proverbs 18:21
This verse is probably one of the most important verses for the believer to gain an understanding of. Most of us say things all the time, which are aimed at bringing about death, rather than life. We cause bad things to happen in our lives and in the lives of those we love, by the power of the words we speak, not even recognizing that power. Yet those words still cause an impact in people’s lives.
Prayers are words. There is no other way to pray. We pray to God, asking for Him to answer. Then we go out of our prayer closet, often saying the exact opposite thing that we were praying mere moments earlier. Which words are God supposed to answer, “Lord, please heal me” or “I’m sure I’m coming down with the flu”? I know which ones I want Him to answer.
Taking that a step further, what power is attached to the cuss words that we use? What effect are we trying to bring about by using them? Do we literally mean what we say or are we just using them as verbal punctuation?
As believers, we are not to follow after the patterns of the world, including their patterns of speech. Words have power and we need to realize that using the wrong words can result in serious problems. According to Jesus’ younger brother, James:
The tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and is itself set on fire by hell. – James 3:6
The first thing we have to realize about the words that we speak, is that they often come from a very poor source. As James said there, the tongue (our words) is set on fire by hell itself. How can this be so? Because the world around us is largely motivated by hell, rather than by God. We learn how to use the language of hell naturally, from hearing our parents use it, hearing it on television and hearing our friends use it at school. It is only natural for us to follow that pattern.
But that doesn’t mean that we have to follow that pattern. According to what Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, we aren’t the same people, once we’ve received Christ. We’ve been made new and therefore all the old things should pass away. That includes the old manner of speaking, along with cursing.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. – 2 Corinthians 5:17
Let’s get practical though. There are a lot of Christians around who don’t appear to have been made new and who still have a lot of old things which have not passed away. We can rectify that problem, by looking at the words in that verse in Greek. When we do, we find that the word “have” doesn’t exist in the original and that the words “passed” (Greek parerchomai) and “become” (Greek ginomai) are both active verbs, which can just as well be translated as “passing” and “becoming.” With that being the case, we can see this verse as talking about a progressive, ongoing work. Maybe we don’t look like that new creation yet, but God is doing that work for us, making us into it.
Going back to the verse above in James, we see that he referred to the tongue, or our words, as a fire and a world of iniquity. That doesn’t necessarily refer to cussing, but it can. The point he is making is that there are things which come out of our mouths, which should not. That definitely includes both cursing and cussing. The result is that we end up defiling ourselves with our words.
James goes on to provide us with some more insight, as well as an admonition.
With it (the tongue) we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude of God. 10 Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so. – James 3:9-10
No, these things should not be so. We must change our habit of using foul language, replacing it with language that is more befitting of those who love and serve God.
Let’s Get Practical
Knowing that we should not be cursing or cussing is one thing; but how does one stop from doing something that has become a lifelong habit? First, we have to make a decision that we’re going to break that habit. It can help to confide in someone dependable, letting them know about the decision, so that they can help. Just sharing that decision with one person tends to hold us accountable to it, which helps us to stand firm in the decision.
For most of us, the use of vulgar words, cussing, is mostly a habit. As such, it can be broken. It is said that habits can be changed in 40 days, if the new habit is practiced every day for those 40 days. So, the first thing to do is come up with other things to say, in place of those words. As I said above, in many cases those words are nothing more than verbal punctuation, so finding other ways of expressing ourselves can help solve the problem.
Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers. – Ephesians 4:29
Our words should edify; that means they should build people up, not tear them down. Obviously vulgar language isn’t going to build anyone up; but what about the rest of the way we speak? Are we saying positive things or negative ones? It’s much easier to fit vulgar words into negative ideas, than it is to fit them into positive ones. Changing the manner of our speech, to be in agreement with the positive message of the Bible can make a huge difference in what we say and the words that we use.
As believers, the Word of God should be the source of our speech. Finding scriptures that talk to us about the language we use can help, as well as finding ways that the Bible expresses things.
Don’t just depend on your own ability though. Ask the Holy Spirit for help. The Holy Spirit is here to help us, in whatever way we need. While that might be healing us from our infirmities, the biggest work that the Holy Spirit does in our hearts. When we allow Him to work for us, He can truly transform not only the way that we speak, but the way that we live our lives for God.
How do people you know and respect speak? What words do they use? How do they express themselves, without using the expressions you want to remove from your life. Learn from them and adopt those expressions as your own.
This takes time and practice. A lot can be gained by speaking to one’s self, when alone. Think through various scenarios and look for better ways to respond to them. It’s amazing just what we can do to train ourselves, just by thinking. But to be effective, it requires repetition. The idea is to replace old patterns of activity with new ones.
What About Anger?
The other time when people start cussing is as a means of expressing their anger. While anger is a natural human emotion, there are those amongst us who become angry all too easily. Most of the time, we become angry because we feel that we have been mistreated in one way or another. In other words, it is our pride that causes us to become angry.
Many times, the anger we feel has much deeper roots than what is happening in that moment, often things that have happened to us before, perhaps in our childhood. Finding the root and recognizing it for what it is, gives us the opportunity to forgive those we need to and deal with the problem, so that it no longer has power over us, causing us to sin. We all have had bad things happen to us in life, but we don’t have to allow those bad things to control us. A simple act of forgiveness, between you and God, without the other person knowing about it, can often be all that’s needed.
Dealing with anger can be a lifelong process; but it is much easier to deal with if we fill our minds with things of God. That can be things that we find in the Bible, thoughts of heaven, thinking about the Lord and what He has done for us, or the message the pastor preached last Sunday. It is much easier to replace negative, worldly thoughts with positive ones, than to try not to think at all.
When things come up which can cause anger, don’t dwell on them. Rather, it is better to think on the same sorts of Biblical thoughts, dwelling on the love of God and all that He has done for us, rather than thinking about the problem which is making us angry in the first place.
This will still leave us with the possibility of things cropping up, rooted in things that we haven’t dealt with yet. That’s normal. So, we need to know how to harness our anger and not allow it to take control of our tongues. One way of doing this goes back to what we were saying a moment ago about vocabulary. Develop some new vocabulary to replace the old, even in those times when you feel like letting a few choice words out. For example, instead of saying “da_n” one can say “darn.” Instead of saying “sh_t” one could say “shoot.” It may seem like the same thing to you; but these words are not offensive and are not considered cursing.
Finally, learn to be slow to anger (Proverbs 14:29). There’s nothing that says that we have to react to things quickly. Oftentimes, if we will just give ourselves a few moments to work through something, we find that we don’t really need to get angry about it. Therefore, there is no reason to use that language which we are trying to remove from our lives. Even if we don’t realize that, taking that moment to think things through gives us the opportunity to answer in a more temperate manner, with much better speech.