"If you desire in honorable company to be joyful, take care that your merriment prove worthy of Christian love, purity, and respectability. Avoid, therefore, rude insults, mocking speech, indecent words, and filthy jokes of which respectable people would be ashamed. First, because lewd conversation of this sort is outward proof of an unregenerate heart; "For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh" (Matt. 12:34). Second, because smutty humor and immodest words smooth the road to dishonorable deeds.
Yet you may say, "One must have something to say when in company with his friends to pass the time and to delight each other." This is indeed a wretched excuse. Such mirth is clearly forbidden by God's Word, "Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient," says the Apostle Paul, are to be permitted. "For because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disodience" (Eph. 5:4,6). Through such evil talk and vain mirth the Holy Spirit of God is grieved. Eph 4: 29-30.
The tongue is the glory of man and the honor of the body. Shall it then be misused in unwholesome speech? When the tongue becomes corrupt it defileth the whole body, filling it with unrighteousness. See James 3:6. Loath all filthiness; let your speech be always full of love and to the edification of those who hear you, that they may be strengthened thereby. Use the gift of speech as a means of rebuking the idle, of instructing the ignorant, and of comforting the troubled. God will reward you with a fuller measure of His gifts. See Mark 4:25.
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