Right!

Paul talked a little bit about this in 1 Corinthians 9:19-23. I’ll just post it here for now.

19For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I may win more.

20(To the Jews I became as a Jew, so that I might win Jews; to those who are under the Law, as under the Law though not being myself under the Law, so that I might win those who are under the Law;

21to those who are without law, as without law, though not being without the law of God but under the law of Christ, so that I might win those who are without law.

22To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak; I have become all things to all men, so that I may by all means save some.

23I do all things for the sake of the gospel, so that I may become a fellow partaker of it.

It’s one thing if a Christian uses profanity. However it becomes something totally different if that person cannot or will not–for the sake of winning more to Christ– learn to put that kind of speech to the side.

My personal rule of thumb is that if it is an expression that is not widely accepted in any open forum, then I keep those expressions to myself. Or better yet, what I have been working on for sometime is if I can’t say it in front of my kids, then maybe I should chose better words.

>>But that is how I chose to live<<

literally, i don’t think that the biblical injunction against ‘filthy communication’ can literally apply to our modern cuss words, since the majority of what we consider to be ‘cuss’ words aren’t curses at all. they’re simply words for bodily functions. (the f- word and its progeny don’t really fall into that category, so we can leave them out for the time being.) moreover, the only difference between ’shit’ and ‘feces’ or ‘defecate’ is that the latter are latinate in origin, while the former is anglo saxon. that, and the former can occupy multiple parts of speech. aside from that, they’re literally indistinguishable, which means that one can’t be “right” while the other is “wrong.” linguistically speaking. i mean, i could go into more detail than that, but i think you get where i’m headed. that’s not biblical, that’s cultural. as an example, there are some christians who get offended by the word ‘piss,’ which just demonstrates to me that they’ve never read the old testament in the kjv.

now actually, i think something like this would, for me at least, be covered by the ‘don’t ensnare your brother with your freedom’ verses in 2 Cor. knowing the etymology of most cuss words and more specifically, why those words got to be the “bad” words, my natural inclination is to call BS on the whole thing. however, because, as you mention, many people regard cussing to be some line of demarcation between a christian and a non-christian, the potential damage it would do to somebody else is probably more costly than any potential gain.