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Christian Network

Familiarity may not breed contempt but it can breed a certain relational carelessness and disrespect for the other person. This is not only true in human relationships but also in our relationship with God. Contemporary Evangelicals have developed a tendency to sometimes treat the holy as something common. This is most evident in the casual, almost flippant attitude many of us have taken towards the name of God.

Today it is not uncommon to hear Christians take the Lord’s name in vain. We sometimes do this in times of anger but also in the heat of other kinds of emotion. Often the term "my God" is being used to emphasize a descriptive sentence, as in "My God, that was a delicious dinner!" or "My God, that rain is coming down!" When we use His name this way it is virtually never with the conscious intent to cheapen it, but that is nonetheless the result.

Not very long ago someone could tell they were among believers just by listening to the kind of exclamations used over the course of a conversation. Invariably you would eventually hear "my goodness" or perhaps "for Pete’s sake" and know these were brethren you were talking to. During the past few years this has become less effective as a way to discern the presence of Christians. Today control of the tongue in regards to the name of God is being exercised less and less.

Many would say this phenomenon is a minor matter and that I am being overly legalistic in writing about it. Yet the proper usage of the name of the Lord is one of the Ten Commandments. Can we afford to take such a cavalier approach to our speech when such wrong usage is so clearly spelled out as sin? This is not a minor matter to God and so it should not be with us.

When I was a child the idea of being in any way verbally disrespectful to my earthly father struck fear into my heart. I do not speak of an inordinate fear generated by abuse but rather the kind of filial fear that comes from a young boy being in awe of his father. The idea of calling him by his first name would have been inconceivable at the time. In fact it still is, even in my adulthood. This is in some way analogous to how we might best approach addressing God in our everyday conversation because, in a sense, we are all small children living out our daily lives before our heavenly father.

Part of godly self-discipline is the control of our tongue. Our surrounding culture is becoming increasingly coarse in language while simultaneously growing more disrespectful towards God and, for that matter, authority figures of any kind. That the World is becoming thus should not surprise us. Outside the church we expect to hear our Lord’s name regularly taken in vain, but it should not be so in the conversation of God’s holy people.