For those of you who haven’t done your Bible study recently (mine has consisted of a quick Google search to get the proper wording of something I vaguely remember from years past), here’s the Third Commandment: “Thou shalt not use the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who uses His name in vain.” I’m not sure why, but I started pondering the significance of said Commandment. So what’s in a name? More specifically, what’s in His name?
I know a lot of good Christians occasionally drop the ol’ “Goddammit!” and “Jesus Christ!” out of frustration or surprise, but does the use of that language make them bad people? There are plenty of innocent little kids running around who don’t know that kind of language can have such severe consequences. Dropping the f-bomb in front of parents could earn you a spanking, but dropping the G-bomb… they definitely don’t want a spanking from the Almighty.
And do you think He’s really that sensitive about His name? It’s something we use to indicate His existence, give Him an identity through language. Does saying “Goddammit!” say anything about Him? Does it refer to Him in a substantive manner? Seriously, if it didn’t sound so goofy, we could just as easily say “Bobdammit!” We could collectively choose to give it the same significance and I can’t imagine everyone named Bob would automatically take offense to that use of language.
I just have this image of a Deity grade school where God is playing on the playground during recess with a bunch of other gods. Out of nowhere, Thor walks up and says, “Your name spelled backwards is ‘Dog’! Stop humping people’s legs!” Then he bops God on the head with a little plastic hammer and they spend the rest of the hour throwing lightning bolts at each other. Well, I think it’s a cool image. (As a side note, if the Third Commandant is absolute with no flexibility, I think I’ve just earned a window seat on the fast track to Hell…)
Ultimately, my opinion on the matter kinda coincides with Chris Rock talking about Christians being forbidden to eat pork (I tried another quick Google search to get the wording right, but surprisingly, Chris Rock is not as popular as the Bible): “When I stand before the Lord on Judgment Day, I refuse to believe that my diet will come into question.”
If I’ve been kicking puppies, that’s one thing, but I’ve been using a potty mouth… potty fingers. My point is that my intentions are (relatively) pure. People might take offense, but they can always leave this website and go search for porn instead. God can’t leave—He’s everywhere and reads everything (and watches you go search for porn)—but if He takes offense at this, it sounds like He’s got a wicked big ego. I guess that leads to another big question: does God have a wicked big ego? Maybe, but maybe He’s just defensive after being bopped on the head with plastic hammers a few too many times.
You’re on the right track Brother but let me help you sort this all out – no ego here ay? 🙂
If you have no relationship with God, it won’t matter to you or Him if you use His name one way or another, or don’t.
But, if you do have a relationship with Him – it will make a diff, to both of you.
Here’s my fav example:
My name is Angela and while I like being called “Ang” for short, I don’t like being called Angie. There are times when people just take it upon themselves to call me Angie and I corret them using my never ending sense of humor but I only do it once, twice, maybe 3 times and after that if they won’t respect the fact that I don’t like to be called Angie, I stop correcting them but it changes out relationship.
I don’t have any really good, close friends that call me Angie (OK a few old fam peeps but I just can’t change ’em). The people who call me Angie are not good friends and they don’t value what is important to me and so I don’t invest much in them. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not just my ego, it’s them too. They are not all that much interested in me either (or is that neither?), I’m not all that much interested in them so they can go on calling me Angie all they want. I won’t care, they won’t care, we’ll never be close.
It’s that way with God and the commandments. Yes, they are laws and yes they can seem pretty strict but the point is this:
If you’re interested in God and having a relationship with the Creator of the Universe, then you will want to do the things that are right according to what He asks of you and it won’t seem like a bunch of hard rules to follow. Like not using the name of “Bob” to curse your worst enemy even if it seems like just a little thingy.
It’s a gradual start but just noticing is the beginning – that’s where I think you’re at. You’re at the beginning of just even noticing that you’re speaking out God or Jesus in anger or bitterness or when you smash your pinky in the car door and it’s sticks a little somewhere – maybe. (The swearing part I mean, not the blasted car door.)
I dunno’ – that’s my spin for your blog – take it – leave it – curse it in the name of Angie – more soon if you’re still interested in dishin’ …
Peace – out! 🙂
P.S.
The use of ANY language does not make ANY person a bad person. The question of what makes a person a bad person is a whole diff ball-o…
P.S.S
The Bible is super full of the significance of people’s names. We as a Western culture just don’t value the importance of names like people did back oh, couple thousand years ago.
For example: Did you know that Shawn =
The Irish form of the name John =
Tracing from Latin to Greek to Hebrew it ends in the equivilant of =
Yahweh = which means Gracious (your namesake?)
Yahweh was the most popular ref to Jesus and is coming back into style. Check it out. I have Yahweh as a Friend on MySpace! 🙂
I like to study the meaning of names and it’s sad to me that we’ve lost interest in what names mean. In the “olden days” people names children after beloved relatives or gave them a name to prophsie something about what the child would become but now we name kids after soap opera stars.
Being a singer I have to confess to watching some American Idol. Well, there was a couple that went into labor and had their first child during auditions because it meant so much to them to be at the audition and so in honor of their “Idol” they named their son “Idol”. How’s that for something prophetic – yikes!!!
Wow, Angela, I love your example/analogy!
Your paragraph with the car door describes me in a nutshell, for I’m at that stage myself. And now I have a better understanding of why I’m starting to be bothered even hearing something that I used to dish out so freely before, myself. Thanks for helping me understand why 🙂