Ephesians 5:4, “Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.”

Introduction

Paul’s command to not make crude jokes is found within a series of examples of how the sons of disobedience earn the wrath of God (Eph. 5:6). Ephesians 5:3 says sexual immorality “should not be named among you.” Then verse 4 says that Christians should not engage in “filthiness,” “foolish talk,” or “crude joking.” So, the crude words prohibited in verse 4 are primarily sexual. Filthiness refers to obscene acts or gestures. Foolish talk is the talk of fools so frequently referenced in the book of Proverbs (Prov. 12:23; 15:2). Crude joking is the Greek word eutrapelia which refers to vulgar jesting. 

One way for the Ephesians to make a break from their pagan past is to make a clear and comprehensive break with the pagan view of sex, which is described as “sexual immorality” (vs. 3). Elsewhere Paul says that “sexual immorality” and “the passion of lust” are characteristics of “Gentiles who do not know God” (1 Thess. 4:4-5). Ephesians 5:5 says that the one who practices sexual immorality or crude sexual joking “has no inheritance in the King of Christ.” Crudeness mocks the pure. Vulgarity exalts the ordinary. Obscenity lauds evil. Such sins are not “proper among the saints” (Eph. 5:3). Rather than swapping crude sex jokes, Christians, should speak “only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear” (Eph. 4:29). 

Bawdy Humor and Teenage Boys

If you walk upon a group of teenage boys, even those from Christian families, there is a good chance you will hear them making filthy, foolish, and crude jokes. There is a group dynamic of peer pressure that says obscene sexual jokes are permitted. People mimic those they admire. As children grow up, they tend to pattern themselves after those people who impress them. Children imitate their behavior and reproduce their speech. When children are young their family is their entire world of meaning, so they mimic their parents and siblings. As they grow up and gain a sense of the larger world around them, their mimetic focus shifts to creative people who are known for pioneering accomplishments and challenging the status quo. Such rebellion often includes crass jokes. 

The language of the lewd too often becomes the norm for a group of teenage boys. Incremental perversity creates a shared grammar that is inadequate to the kinds of claims necessary for embracing life or resisting death. It is a juvenile culture that interprets every word heard in the most vulgar way possible. It’s the trick of regarding everything in relation to sex. If something is said that can be cast with a porny spin, one boy’s eyes light up, a smile forms on his face, and he eyeballs his friend across the room to communicate his filthy thought. It confines ambition to the gutter. A verbal mudscape of raunchy one-liners establishes ugliness as the standard. 

The teenage boys think they are inhabiting a mature world that knows about sex. It’s a macho conceit to think that fleshly joking demonstrates maturity, manliness, or might. In truth, coarse joking advertises unimaginativeness and immaturity. It screams “emasculated beta male” to speak yet another crude joke that has been told a million times by a million fools. If a young person cannot discover their folly for moral reasons, they should be embarrassed by the sheer banality of ribaldry. It's only wanton insouciance that insists on repeating appallingly insipid jokes. 

In other words, what is offensive about such jokes is not that they are funny; rather, it is that they are not funny at all. He has gone for the laugh cheaply, with the sort of boorish bravado that might make a man believe himself a great wit. He might as well believe he’s a master chef because he microwaved a frozen dinner, or a world-class athlete because he won a game of hopscotch. 

Just as those who consume pornography are the foes of genuine love, so too are those who talk with coarse jests, the true enemies of wit. Sex has its highest meaning from God who has regulated sex because it is sacred. Biblical ethics come from God, who is an expert in pleasure (Ps. 16:11). Sex has its highest pleasure when experienced in the context of the marriage of one man and one woman. So the poor sap who looks at porn has chosen a lower “pleasure” that always detracts from his relationship with his wife, or future wife. Likewise, the poor patsy trafficking in base quips is an enemy of mirth.  

Teenage boys trade in such parodies because they want to appear independent and masculine. Still in their salad days—green from lack of experience—they think shortcuts work. Crude sexual jokes seem like a shortcut to masculine respect, signaling that they have more freedom and fewer boundaries. But there is no shortcut to maturity. Growing into maturity happens by seeking responsibility—showing up to work on time, submitting assignments on time, mowing the lawn, bringing interesting questions to the dinner table, and befriending the new kid. Responsibility is not the gloomy albatross it’s made out to be. It’s the hopeful position because it says that immaturity can be corrected. Personal responsibility not only honors the Lord but also wins the respect of others.

Happiness and Teenage Boys

The concept of happiness—or blessing—is not absent from the scope and ambition of Scripture. Those who fear and obey God are under God’s blessing (Ps. 128). What does it mean to receive the blessing of God? In one sense, the whole Bible is about God’s blessings. Adam and Eve are blessed when they obey God’s command to be fruitful and multiply (Gen. 1:22, 28). Abraham is blessed by God when he obeys God, goes from his country, and makes a great nation (Gen. 12:2). Jacob blesses his twelve sons in Genesis 49. Deuteronomy 28 pronounces blessings of the covenant for those who obey God. In Psalm 128 the man is blessed, as is Adam in Genesis 1:22, with a fruitful wife and prospering children. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus identifies eight key qualities of faithfulness and announces each with the word “blessed.” In the book of Revelation, there are seven salvos of blessings scattered from the beginning to the end of the book (Rev. 1:3; 14:13; 16:15; 19:9; 20:6; 22:7, 14).

Two different Hebrew words are translated as “blessing” in the Old Testament. The first is Asher. This word means a heightened state of happiness and joy, implying favorable circumstances and enjoyment. This word is sometimes translated as happy (2 Chr. 9:7). Asher (or blessedness) comes when God reproves (Job 5:17), saves (Dt. 33:29), gives wisdom (1 Kgs 10:8), forgives (Ps. 32:1). Asher (or blessed) is the one who rejects wicked counsel (Ps. 1:1); entrusts himself to God (Ps. 2:12; 40:5), helps the poor (Ps. 41:2), sings hymns to the Lord (Ps. 84:5), does justice (Ps. 106:3), lives blameless (Ps. 119:1), hopes in God (Ps. 146:5), obeys his parents (Prov. 8:32), lives with integrity (Prov. 20:7), doesn’t harden his heart (Prov. 28:14), and keeps the sabbath (Is. 56:2). The second word is barak. This word means to kneel. Blessed is the one whose heart and body are postured to worship God.

Coarse joking and God’s blessing are contrasted conceptions. Sexually perverse jokes are an act of self-loathing that always leads to misery, not blessing. The farcical façade of another off-color jest may project to others that everything is happy-happy. But God’s blessing arrives in a decidedly different pattern. According to God, giving to the needy, living in righteousness, hoping in God’s promises, and children obeying their parents produce a much happier life than one more mind-numbing yock about boff. God’s Word doesn’t reduce life but expands one’s capacity and fills the faithful with the vigor of joy. 

Repentance and Teenage Boys

There is no such thing as “mere words.” Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks (Mt. 12:34). If someone speaks the words of sexual immorality, they have sexual immorality in their heart (Mt. 12:35). Why would a Christian father permit his daughter to marry a young man who has sexual immorality spewing out of his heart and mouth? The whole effect of these jokes is a sweeping and generalizing power that shapes the expectations of male-female relations. Imagine a father evaluating marriage prospects for his daughter. Now imagine a young man, one who routinely makes sexually explicit jokes. He goes to the father and expresses interest in the daughter. What is the father left to conclude but that, first, the young man’s infantile imagination views women as sex objects; and second, the young man regularly enfeebles himself with pornography? Unrepentant sexual joking makes a young man—indeed any man—unsuitable for marriage, which means the jester is choosing uncreative jesting over the lawful act of marriage and sexual pleasure. 

A Christian young man caught in a loop of perverse jesting is trying to be something he is not. He is living like a pagan even though his baptism says he has been washed and made new (Titus 3:5). All the pathetic pornographic “humor” is an attempt to appear macho. It is an attempt to exaggerate manliness and assertiveness. Of course, the easiest thing is to do nothing, to go along to get along, to repeat the lie that it's just meaningless words. The problem with the “do nothing” approach is that it lacks the courage, moral intelligence, and thoughtfulness of our forefathers in the faith. What should a Christian teenager do to get back on the pathway of God’s blessings? 

First, speak up. Tell your fellow participants that their habit of telling indecent jokes is sinful (Mt. 18:15). Confess your sin to the group and call on them to confess their sin as well. Lead the group in a prayer of confession to God. If they do not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses (Mt. 18:16). 

Second, walk away. If the group rejects the need to repent and carries on in their “corrupting talk” (Eph. 4:29), then you should find new friends to spend time with, friends that won’t drag you to the dungeon but spur you on to love and good deeds.

Third, seek graybeards. That is, find Christians more mature than you and spend time with them. Listen to how they talk. Notice how profane humor detracts from joy rather than enhances it. See how all their life is lived based on the grace of Christ in the power of the Spirit. Repenting of sin—especially group sin—is not a matter of willpower. It’s a matter of using the vast resources Christ has given the church. 

Conclusion

The ordinary use of filthy talk is rebellion (Ps. 12). Wisdom writes her songs and folly writes hers. We need to make it the business of life to be in the grip of the right songs. Young men, in particular, are told that “the beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight” (Prov. 4:7). In the book of wisdom, we also read this:

“Put away from you crooked speech, and put devious talk far from you” (Prov. 4:24) 

“A worthless person, a wicked man, goes about with crooked speech” (Prov. 6:12)

“The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate” (Prov. 8:13)

Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls (James 1:21).