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Top X June 15, 2025 Devotional

by David Joynt on June 15, 2025

Top X June 15, 2025 Devotional

DEUTERONOMY 5:11 | 11 You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.

 

What does it mean to make wrongful use of the Lord’s name? In common parlance it means to deploy that name for a false or unholy purpose. Our current milieu is profane in this sense because nearly every film is filled with curse words, often used ungrammatically as adjectives or exclamations. In scripture, God’s name refers to His character, to the reality and substance of His personality and purposes. Since He is holy, deploying His name without actually addressing Him is a kind of false prayer, a denigration of its value and of Him. To curse someone in God’s name expresses more than an opinion, it carries the implication that we can control God’s behavior. In this sense it is blasphemous.

 

Why do you think comedians and actors and writers are so casual about profanity?

 

 

Gracious God,

Help me remember the power of words. Let me resist profanity and anything that denigrates Your character.

Amen.

 

About the Author
David Joynt

Dave Joynt began his service as a pastor at Valley Presbyterian Church in Paradise Valley, Arizona in September 2014. This meant a move away from the Northeast, where he has a long history, growing up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and then serving congregations in Delaware and New Jersey for a total of 23 years.

Dave was nurtured in a great church in Bethlehem where his parents, Anne and Carey, served as elders. He graduated in classics from Lehigh University where his Father taught, and then from Oxford, where he met his wife Julia. Ordained in 1988, he completed a Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1993.

He and Julia have a son, Tristan, and a daughter, Madeleine.

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