Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Sarcasm

When I was young (and very foolish), especially during my high school days, I used to find joy in sarcasm -- yes, I enjoyed stringing words together to form sentences that would rate extremely high on the sarcasmometer and use them on my friends. Of course it doesn't help that my friends were also fellow fans in the horrible art of sarcasm.

It was only recently that I learned, via a sermon from C.J. Mahaney, that sarcasm has no place in the Christian's life. C.J. gave a sermon on encouragement, where his key verse was Ephesians 4:29:

"Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear."

The command from God here is that there must be no corrupt talk whatsoever, which would naturally include sarcasm. Instead, what we speak should be good for "building up" others.

I was challenged once again by a pastor's sermon on Sunday, from another verse in Ephesians:

"Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving." - Ephesians 5:4

That's a tough challenge for me indeed, especially at the lunch table at work, where there's always a tendency to start and dwell on unhelpful topics, and I'm very guilty of this as well.

Finally there is the sombre warning from the Lord Himself:

"I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned." - Matthew 12:36-37

Jesus did not make any distinctions -- believers and unbelievers alike will be judged for every careless word they speak. Oh, how many careless words have I muttered under my breath. God give me grace.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home