Human beings are social creatures. We need to belong. One of the most obvious ways we do that is by the way we speak. Whenever we speak, in all sorts of small ways, we’re signalling to others how and where we belong. Often our nationality, our social class (or our aspirations!), our particular generation, our allegiances, influences, and personalities are all revealed when we speak. This is entirely natural; usually we don’t realise it’s happening. As small children, we’re hardwired to learn language by imitating parents and other family members and listening for their responses. As we grow, we pick up accents and mannerisms from all sorts of people we care about, so that we can communicate with them and show we belong. Teenagers do it all the time with their language. Adults do too. A while back, I moved from Australia to England to study theology at a university. My course involved attending a weekly seminar where students were encouraged to ask questions. I had a go at asking questions, and I soon realised something. Whenever I opened my mouth, for the first few seconds, the people in the room (who were mostly British) weren’t listening to my question. They heard my ocker Aussie accent; and subconsciously, their brains were running through their stereotypes: “This is strange; this person doesn’t belong here; he belongs at the beach or drinking beer or starring in Home and Away…” That is, until their conscious minds kicked in and they started listening to my question (or at least politely humouring my ignorance). So what did I do? I wanted to belong, so I toned it down a bit. My accent changed subtly. I didn’t realise how much it had changed until I came back to Australia and everyone told me I sounded a bit weird and posh. In fact, my dear sister (who trained as a voice coach at NIDA) informed me that I had come back with “neutral vowels”. Amazing! As believers in Christ, we use our speech to show that we fit in and adapt to the way others speak. Often, we do it for very good reasons. We want to connect with people so we can share the great news of salvation through Christ. We don’t want to alienate them unnecessarily with weird expressions. We don’t want them to think we’re weird either, because we want them to hear what we have to say. So we adapt our speech to the way everyone around us speaks. But of course, our motivations are often more complex than that, aren’t they? Sometimes, even unconsciously, we’re motivated by fear rather than by love. We’re afraid of what other people think of us; we’re afraid we might sound a bit weird. And sometimes, that leads us, without even thinking about it, to speak in ways that are wrong. That’s why it’s important for us to hear what Paul has to say in these verses. He’s talking here about certain kinds of speech (and this applies to online communication too). In this area, Paul is saying that those who believe in Christ must not adapt our speech to the people around us. In fact, this is an aspect of life where it’s important for us to sound a bit weird. But sexual immorality and every kind of impurity or greed should not even be named among you, as is fitting for holy people: so no filth, and no stupid talk or witty innuendo, which are out of line, but rather thanksgiving.Ephesians 5:3–4 Saying porn Verse 3 begins: “But sexual immorality and every kind of impurity or greed should not even be named among you”. To get the idea across here, I’ve created a new English word from some of Paul’s original words: pornolalia....