What Middle School Students Think

I say to the middle school students, “So, what does the Bible say about language use?”

“Don’t swear,” they say.

“Where does it say that in the Bible?”

“In the ten commandments.”

“What is swearing?” I ask.

“Using bad words.”

“Hmm. What are bad words? Can you give me some examples?”

They look shocked and apprehensive and a few of them giggle, but then they tell me. “The F-word, the Sh-word, the B-word, the other B-word, H-E-double toothpicks, the D-word.”

“Can we put them on the board in order of which are the worst words to use?”

They do so. Starting with the worst, the list reads, “The F-word, the Sh-word, the D-word, the B-words, and finally H-E-double toothpicks.”

And in fact, they are completely wrong. They were wrong from the start.

The Ten Commandments Don’t Say, “Don’t Swear”

We have been using this shorthand version of the commandment for a long time, but that isn’t actually what the commandment says. The commandment reads, “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name” (Exodus 20:7). When we reduce the commandment to “don’t swear” we are muddying the waters.

When we say, “don’t swear,” what do we mean by that? Do we mean that it is wrong to take an oath (that would be what the word originally meant)? Do we mean that it is wrong to use “swear words”—meaning that if we eliminate the list of bad words above (perhaps adding a few more) from our vocabularies, we are okay?

The commandment actually tells us not to misuse the name of our Lord. So what does it mean to misuse the Lord’s name? Consider these scenarios:

• You put a dollar fifty in quarters into a vending machine. The machine takes your money, the coil turns, but your Twix bar fails to drop so you can grab it. “Oh my God,” you say. “That machine just ate my money.”

Are you actually calling upon God in this moment of difficulty? Or are you using God’s name as if it were a punctuation mark? Are you misusing God’s name?

• There is an argument in your church about whether or not to renovate the church kitchen. Good people are divided on the issue. So you stand up during a meeting and tell everyone that you have been praying to God about this for a long time, and you think that the church should go ahead with the renovation.

Are you calling on God to find wisdom in this matter? Or are you using God’s name to help argue your own preference? Is that misusing the Lord’s name?

• You are driving downtown when another car comes out of nowhere and streaks past yours, missing the side mirror by a centimeter or two. “Damn it,” you mutter under your breath.

Do you mean to consign the offending car to the fires of eternal torment or are you just angry? Are you calling upon God appropriately in either case?

Generally, we tend to mess up in one of two ways. Either we use God’s name as punctuation, ignoring its meaning altogether; or we call upon God to do something that we don’t actually want God to do (or shouldn’t want God to do).

So if those words are bad, does that mean it is okay to use the F-word?

                On the one hand, it is true that the commandment does not mention vulgar words at all, but as we have seen, it is really not about the words themselves, but about how we use them. The F-word is a good example. The word is used for a limited number of things: as a word of anger; as a word that belittles, cheapens, and caricatures the idea of sex—which is one of God’s great gifts to us; or as a word used to impress other people as to the intensity, toughness, or apathy of the speaker. None of these are good uses for any word. If you add to that the fact that the word offends many people, clearly it is not a word to be used.

The Sh-word might be a slightly different case. When a farmer uses that word to refer to a manure pile, one could argue that he is using the word correctly and not misusing it at all. The problem comes when we use a word that refers to stinking waste material to make reference to a person or their ideas or the things that they own or anything else that is part of God’s creation. When we do so, we are mocking and making light of something that God made. When we do that lightly, we are guilty of misusing the word.

But what if we don’t mean anything by it? What if it is just a word? I mean, come on, what is the difference between saying “What the heck” and saying “What the hell?”

Maybe there is no difference between “What the heck?” and “What the hell?” (After all, both sentences don’t make much sense grammatically.) But maybe that is because we are not thinking of the meaning of the words we are using. Perhaps we are playing loosely with a concept that is of great consequence.

So should we reorder our list of bad words in accordance with what the commandment says? Should we come up with a more accurately organized list of bad words? Should it start with God, Jesus, Damn, and Hell as the worst words one can say, then get to the vulgar words later?

That would be a mistake too. Because the commandment doesn’t say that the words God, Jesus, Damn, and Hell are bad words—in fact, the Bible uses all of those words at one time or another. Instead the commandment says not to misuse those words. Yes. Exactly. This is the point. When we look at the commandment and make a list of words, we are misinterpreting God’s meaning. The commandment is about using words and not misusing them. God wants us to take words and names seriously, it seems. And if we can teach our students that distinction—that it is the misuse of words that is wrong—we will have taken them a giant step toward understanding what God is asking us to do.

The Ten Commandments don’t say, “Don’t lie”

                When God commands us not to take his name in vain, that is not the only useful advice given us about how to use words. God also tells not to “bear false witness.” We often summarize that commandment as “do not lie.” The commandment is actually telling us not to speak in a way that is deceptive. We all know ways that we can avoid lying and at the same time cause our audience to come to the incorrect conclusion that we want them to come to. If I ask my daughter if she fed her pet rabbit and she answers yes, but quietly adds the word “yesterday” to her affirmation so that I can’t hear it, she isn’t technically lying, but she is certainly bearing false witness. Summarizing the commandment as “do not lie” gets us off the hook a bit.

More responsibility, not less

So what does all this mean for the middle school class mentioned at the beginning of the article? Can they use vulgar words as long as they don’t lie or use God’s name in vain?

The bottom line is that God is not asking us for less; he is asking us for more. God wants us to use his name and the names of things in creation wisely. God wants us to speak the truth. God wants us to use language to build up our brothers and sisters, not to hurt them. When we are told not to use God’s name in vain, this acknowledges that we sinful humans can make any word, even the name of our loving Creator, into a hurtful, mean thing. So we need to use words carefully. Not just the four-letter words, but also words like “stupid,” “slow,” and even “from a broken family” can be ways that we dismiss God’s children as being less than wonderfully made. We can use words like “love” and “Christian” too lightly as if they are ways to make things nicer instead of words that should change the way we see the world.

And all of these are good thigs to teach my students, but it is equally important to point out to them that, as a broken and sinful people, we will all fall short, both in the classroom and in the rest of the world. But since we are also saved by grace, we need to honor the words God gave us and do our best to honor God’s request with a spirit of thankfulness.

And that is one of the most valuable lessons we can teach children at any age.

Bill Boerman-Cornell is professor of Education and English at Trinity Christian College in Palos Heights, IL.