“But Paul doesn’t tell us to fight dirty jokes with clean jokes, lame or not. He says to fight dirty jokes with contentment and gratitude.”
No Such Thing as Bad Words, p. 66
Making and Having
“All of this is one of the reasons why more than a few readers constantly assume that I am always making fun of them. This is because they belong to a different tradition, that, say, of stuffing all the shirts, and they have trouble distinguishing a man who is making fun from a man who is just having fun.”
No Such Thing as Bad Words, p. 57
Can We Agree So Far?
“Before claiming the right to speak like Ezekiel, can we at least agree that Ezekiel was Ezekiel? He, at any rate, rebuked the geopolitical lusts of Jerusalem, by saying that they yearned for Babylonians who were hung like donkeys, and who ejaculated like horses.”
No Such Thing as Bad Words, p. 53
Real Gingerly
“If someone is caught up in an immoral lifestyle, should we seek to help them? Well, of course, but in the same way we would want to help someone out if they had fallen into a sewage lagoon. Gingerly.”
No Such Thing as Bad Words, p. 49
The Rest of the Word
“I used the full text of the n-word just now because it is one of the words that is being used as an ideological slug, as evidenced by its banishment from real literature and its mandatory inclusion in rap music.”
No Such Thing as Bad Words, p. 45
An Appropriate Curse
“So of course the expression should never be used because the guy in front of you on the freeway is driving too slowly. But if a false teacher is spreading soft buttery lies about LGBTQ and + . . . then God damn that guy.”
No Such Thing as Bad Words, p. 39
The Sin of Not Swearing
“There are many occasions where it would be unrighteousness to swear. The prohibitions are in Scripture for a reason. But we must also keep in mind the fact that there are many occasions when it would be unrighteousness not to swear.”
No Such Thing as Bad Words, p. 31
Carry the Concept With You
“It is not legalism to understand the principle and apply it in new territory.”
No Such Thing as Bad Words, p. 19
One or the Other
“Jesus says that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks (Matt. 12:34). Is our speech a fresh water spring or a sewage pipe?”
No Such Thing as Bad Words, p. 18
Four Challenges
“That said, let’s break down inappropriate speech (in English) to four basic categories. These are vulgarity, obscenity, cursing, or swearing. The problem for the Platonists is that there are godly examples of all four categories found within the pages of Scripture. The problem for the libertines is that the Bible prohibits speaking in all four categories. The upshot is that we need to become far more disciplined in how we speak.”
No Such Thing as Bad Words, p. 13