February 02, 2015
Do Not Curse
I visited a progressive
church that is currently without a pastor. The woman filling the pulpit
intended to play two video clips of comedian Robin Williams to illustrate a
point in the message. One clip was an ABC News tribute, “The Life and Death of
Robin Williams.” The second clip could not be located on the computer and the
pastor made a spur of the moment decision to randomly pick another clip. Williams
was beginning his stand-up routine when he said, “…to make English the second
God damn language!” I winced for the congregation and then cringed on behalf of
the empty wooden cross hanging silently beside the video screen. “All day long
my enemies taunt me; those who rail against me use my name as a curse” (Psalm
102:8 NIV).
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----God made humans with this really interesting reflector inside. It’s part of our neurological process; it’s part of our psychology. It’s what we see when we “see” or perceive ourselves. But it isn’t truly our self. Our self is all of the principles and processes and information of our minds we accept into our thinking and actions going forward, as well as those we deny which we’re going to do anyway, “For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” (Rom 7:15b) In a strange sort of reverse way, the real self is also made of the denials of all those ideas and principles and stuff we have so well rejected that we will never think or do them. All this stuff is us at once in our subconscious, but at any given moment our perception of it is served up in the form of our self image. And by that we perceive our character.
-----Taking the Lord’s name in vein has so tightly been tied to profane language that its more scary sense goes almost unnoticed. In most other references to the Lord’s name we understand the aspect of the expression’s reference to the Lord’s character. We pray in the Lord’s name certainly by authorizing our privilege to approach God by referral to Jesus Christ, “He said I could ask you, Father.” But even more than that, and I think most of us realize this, we pray in His name when the sort of things we ask are of the sorts of things He would ask. And the same goes for the rationale in our asking and the intentional good we hope from them. This idea comes from the sense that in the minds of the ancients in whose languages the Scriptures were written, a person’s character was inseparably bound up in his name. So when we are entreating the Father in the name of Christ, we are entreating in His character as well as by His title. When we do things in His name, we do them in His character as well as by the authority of His title, and even, if we want to drill into it deeper, by the authority of His character, which is truth and love. We entreat or do in truth and love if surely we do these in His name.
-----We’ve been called into a glorious relationship with Christ wherein we lay the sinful part of our nature down in order to become more and more of His nature. We were called Christians first in Antioch, and ever since we have perceived coming to Christ as also taking on His name. We can generate that nature into the reflection of ourselves that is our self image. We can even more easily generate it into the image of ourselves others see. But how really are His principles, His ideas and concepts and thoughts, His Word, how well are these embedded in those principles and processes and information of our minds that are the truly intentional parts of our going forward? The less embedded His information is in our information, the more in vein is His name taken into our image. The more embedded are these, the more genuine it is.
-----Profane language indeed is problematic, because His Word tells us to make our words real. Even the actions and attitudes we put forth as showings of ourselves to others as well as to ourselves are words. So it all is profanity when we misuse His name in word or deed or show.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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