A Commonplace Against Those Who Take the Lord's Name in Vain

 [Composed as an example of the exercise for my writing students. The "commonplace" gave a student the skills to manipulate an audience's pathos, or emotions, and provided training for conclusions of full speeches]

[Prooemion] Christians are called to use our words with care, honor, and respect. This applies clearly to the name of God, our Maker and Creator.

[Contrast with the opposite]

We serve a God who does not merely use words, but is the Word Himself, whose name is the foundation of all existence. He has given that name to his greatest creation, mankind, and he has told us to carry it with honor in the third of the Ten Commandments. Those who follow Him in this will be blessed in both word and deed. Their words will be precious pearls, found in the least likely places.

[Expansion]

Who, then, are those who break this commandment? They are men, women, boys and girls, who take the most sacred word known to humanity—the one God gave us to represent himself—and trample it in the dirt. Taking the Lord’s name in vain is not only the frivolous use of cursing, bringing the name of God out to cover a stubbed toe or a hammered thumb. This is evil, but it is not the highest evil under this commandment. No, it may be seen in anyone who claims to bear the name of the Son of God, a Christ-ian (or we may say a “little Christ”) who does not live every moment as though this was true. This is hypocrisy, high-handed lying about God; the kind of lying that men do even while claiming to be one His people. Any man who does not tell the whole truth about who God is (and who he is) every second, of every day, is a breaker of this commandment: a blasphemer! They are sinners, and not small sinners, but sinners flirting with hell-fire itself.

[Comparison with something less bad]

A thief is a terrible thing. He uproots prosperity and strikes at the very pillar of civilization. But one who takes God’s name in vain is often far more guilty than any thief ever could be. A thief steals from men; a blasphemer steals from God. A thief may commit his crime at most a few times in a day; a blasphemer’s every word may betray him. A thief’s crime is easily measured, but who can quantify a personal slight against the infinite Ruler of Heaven and Earth and all within them?

[Maxim]

Few men will dare to insult a great man in his presence. But thousands easily scoff at the vast majesty and glory of God; they speak words with no thought of their meaning or outcome. What else can this be but true madness? As Cicero said, “What so effectually proclaims the madman as the hollow thundering of words—be they never so choice or resplendent—which have no thought or knowledge behind them?” And what else can be uttered in frustration and anger, empty of meaning? This is truly the path of the insane, chasing death and destruction not just with their feet but with their tongues.

[Wicked Intent/Origin]

Of course, their wicked path may have started long before this moment. A high-handed blasphemer does not wake up one day and decide to curse God to His face. They sin gradually, first becoming content with not telling the whole truth, but only part of it. They tell themselves they are doing it to help others, to spare them pain, to shield them from “the real truth.” Then they move on to deliberately obscuring their words and actions. They grow in deception and darkness with every lie about God they utter. Finally, they become true hypocrites, vipers with poison under their tongues, the sort all Christians should fear becoming!

[Rejection of Pity]

So often we hear that this is “just a little sin.” Using the Lord’s name in vain is “just an accident” or “a tiny habit” or “an unfortunate slip-up.” These people ask us to excuse them because their sin is so small. But is this what God thinks? Hear what he says: “You shall not take the Name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses His Name.” If God will not absolve them, if He considers it important enough to list before murder and adultery, than who are we to pity and ignore this fault? We must stand against these blasphemers with all the strength we can muster!

[Final Appeal]

We condemn those who take the Lord’s name in vain because it is just; the Lord Himself wrote it into his law. He does not change, and so why should we by ignoring this fault? Further, it is most beneficial to the health of the Body, for squashing this sin early will prevent many others from fouling our churches, the beautiful Bride of Christ. If we do not wish for murder or covetousness to be our topics of conversation, then we must begin with our smaller words and actions; we must live as those marked with the insignia of Jesus: bread and wine and water. It is appropriate for us to do this—for we follow Christ, who condemned in the strongest terms those who blasphemed the Holy Spirit. Though it may be difficult to convince others in our corrupt and lewd culture to be careful with their mouths and deeds, yet we know it is possible, for “with God, all things are possible.” So let us put these men and their filthy mouths in the dust bin of history—where they belong.

A Crumb of Chreia

[A chreia is an ancient Greek rhetorical exercise, in which a student was required to expand on a well-known saying or action of a famous person by using certain methods or "headings." This one was composed for a rhetoric course final.]

Quintilian wrote that “Everybody prefers to have learned rather then to learn!” (Institutio Oratoria III.1)
This is a trustworthy saying, for Quintilian was not only a practitioner of rhetoric, but one of its great teachers; his entire work is dedicated to nothing else than the instruction and formation of a perfect orator. That is too immense a topic to praise here, but surely we can honor him for this bare bit of insight, spilled out(almost carelessly) from the great storehouse of his wisdom.
For he is saying that what students have already mastered is very hard to replace with later instruction, even if what they have learned originally is faulty or incomplete. The cause of this is not difficult to determine, since it lives in every man’s experience.
Who does not remember agonizing over some approaching final exam in his school days, knowing that mountains of effort and rivers of sweat had been used up in trying to anchor the needed facts in the memory? Every student knows that learning is tough, and often tedious. The raw clay of the mind is being pressed into a different mold; when it finally emerges bright, shining, and ready to be displayed to others, there is a genuine pride in the achievement.
But then another rushes up, secure in his own superior learning, and attacks the hard-won treasure with words of scorn! “They were poorly instructed, they were wrongly taught, they should instead listen to a newcomer and begin again.” Even if the newcomer is right and everything he says is as true as the face of God, the one being instructed instantly revolts. Admitting this new point means that all previous effort has been vain. Not only this, but it means he must own up to being wrong—worse, being a deceived fool in the presence of someone who knew even more about a subject. Pride, embarrassment, and anger combine to stifle the humility of confessing error.
On the contrary, a man who can be convinced of his own faults is rare—he has disciplined his wayward emotions and is prepared to do whatever needs to be done to arrive, not at mere knowledge, but at truth. What teacher would not travel many miles to find such a student? The very rarity of those who prefer to learn contributes to their worth, compared to those who prefer to have learned.
This saying proves that labor is hard and men are proud, and that once they have mined a bit of knowledge for themselves they are reluctant to throw it away, even if it is proved that what they clutch is nothing more than fool’s gold.
Consider with what reluctance Quintilian admits in a few places that he had changed some positions on pedagogy since his younger days! Here the one doing the correcting is not even another, but his own older, wiser self—the one person every human being on the earth will proclaim incontestably superior to who he used to be. And yet he is reluctant to admit even an improvement in his system before the sharp eyes of others, and defends his change of course with many reasons and proofs; afraid of appearing weak and inconstant as the wind.
Therefore, as Solomon has written, Wisdom calls to her children: “Hear instruction, and be wise, and refuse it not.” He joins his testimony to the orator’s: refusal to learn is not the path of the wise few. It is instead the path of the mulish multitude—but the pride of the foolish blinds them to which road they are traveling, leaving them in the dark even while they claim sight.
With all this in mind, it is quite clear that Quintilian has given us a great and memorable saying of education. May we always keep it as something we are learning rather than have learned.