Right now I’ve got several series going, and here they are, I believe.  By mentioning these series, I’m saying that I want to finish them, Lord-willing.  Go back and read these again or read them for the first time.
The Moral Nature of God (part one, part two, part three, part four)
Crucial to a Gospel Presentation: Explain Belief (part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, part six)
Biblical Equality and the Societally Destructive Lie of Egalitarianism (part one, part two)

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Non Specific Commands or Instruction about Not Profaning

The New Testament alone has about one thousand commands in it.  About eighty percent of these, I would call “non-specific.”  In the past, I’ve written that God requires specific application of these non-specific commands.  When scripture is non-specific as such, it implies that the reader knows what God says.  This realm of scripture is self-evident.  God assumes that the reader of scripture knows what He means, and in His omniscience, God knows what people know and what they don’t know.  He will judge them for their belief and practice of this scripture.

Perhaps you have watched a 1 1/2 to 2 year old child, who is not yet able to communicate well in a known language.  However, the child knows what his parents, his siblings, and other adults are saying to him.  Even if he can’t speak the language, he understands it.  Therefore, the child is responsible for keeping what he knows.  In a similar way, God knows that we know the meaning and the application of these non-specifics.

An example of a non-specific through scripture starting with the Old Testament, is the direction by God not to profane Himself (Ezekiel 22:26),  His name (Leviticus 18:21, 19:12, 20:3, 21:6; Amos 2:7, Malachi 1:12), His sanctuary (Leviticus 21:12, 23; Ezekiel 23:39, 24:21), the holiness of the Lord (Malachi 2:11), the holy things (Leviticus 22:15), the temple (Acts 24:5), and people’s own selves (Ezekiel 28:16; Jeremiah 23:11; Hebrews 12:16).  God commands to be holy, which is also non-specific, but in a negative fashion, He also commands not to profane.

Understanding Profanity

On another occasion, I thoroughly explained the concept, idea, or teaching of “profane.”  I wrote a series, “Judging Music: Blurring the Distinction Between the Sacred and the Profane” (part one, part two), in which I showed how profanity occurs with music.  Of course, someone does the profane and not the holy when he sins, either doing what he shouldn’t do or not doing what he should do.  Even with sinning, someone must again apply non-specific commands to obey them.

Many of you reading have walked into a hotel or a hotel room and received a first impression.  You can see something superior versus average.  Maybe the average doesn’t violate a code, but it doesn’t pop like the look of wonderful and amazing.  When someone does work for you, you also know the difference between the two.  You know the difference between a good caulking job, average, and poor.  Probably many of you wouldn’t even accept average, let alone poor, and you know the distinctions.

Do you remember the story of Belshazzar’s Feast in Daniel 5?  This is the narrative of “the writing on the wall,” which has become a common expression.  Belshazzar, a pagan king, holds a great feast and serves the drinks in the vessels looted from the Solomonic Temple.  These were sacred to God, which meant no common or profane use of them, only something sacred.  Anyone who did so blasphemed God.  Upon this occasion, Belshazzar lost the kingdom and with direct relationship to this profanity.

Vulgarity

The Bible does not show how not to profane something is profaned, whether the very serious profaning of God Himself and His name or the profaning of a believer.  Scripture implies that we know.  Even if someone says, “Nothing is sacred anymore,” something is still sacred even when everyone turns everything into the profane or the common.

Related to common and profane as English words is the word “vulgar.”  Vulgar is not always wrong.  The idea behind Jerome’s Vulgate, whether it succeeded or not, was to get the original languages into the common language of the Roman Empire.  “Vulgate” means common or colloquial speech.  However, very often when someone says, “That was vulgar,” he means “profane.”  Being vulgar was bad.

Some Things Are Still Sacred Anymore

Just because the world and even those who profess Christianity diminish what is sacred to the profane or common, does not mean that nothing is sacred or everything is profane.  The sacred or holy is still sacred or holy to God and God knows when people profane or make common or vulgar what is holy to Him.  Usually much other sinning will accompany such an approach or attitude that either profanes what is holy, accommodates it, or allows it.

Based on my knowledge according to a now large sample size, it is my opinion that a very small minority of churches work on keeping the non-specific commands of not profaning God and His things.  I also believe that those who do not keep these commands are in fact blaspheming God parallel to Belshazzar above.  They might expect the handwriting on the wall, which is not a good thing for them.

More to Come