Jumpin Jehoshaphat!

 

Good day! I’m Duane Matz and this is Today’s Living Word.

 

So this morning as I was preparing my blog, I found myself in 2 Chr 20, and learned about a king of Judah named Jehoshaphat.  Ever hear someone say, “Jumpin Jehoshaphat?”  I am one of those people who cut their teeth on Saturday morning Looney Tunes and we often heard Yosemite Sam exclaim  Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat!

 

The expression originated  in the united Sates in the 19^th century as a “minced oath, or pseudo swear words.

In other words a way to replace profanity with inoffensive words.

 

A way to clean up language.

 

Lord knows, these days  we need to clean it up more than ever! F bombs are commonly used by people of all ages,  It seems no one can express themselves with out swearing! Even the name of Jesus Christ escapes from many a pair of angry lips. The name of the One who died for our sins spews out with inflexion that are clearly full of disdain!

 

Christian writer and pastor, Max Lucado tells of the time a revivals happened early in the twentieth century in Wales. One hundred thousand people came to Christ in less than a year. Almost-empty bars were closed for lack of business.

 Magistrates saw their courts emptied of criminals. Miners even had to retrain the mules that worked in the coal mines – many of the animals had been trained to respond to vulgar commands. But when the men got cleaned up, their language did as well, and the mules had to learn a new vocabulary.

Has the Holy Spirit been working on cleaning up your language? Jumpin Jehoshaphat. That’s good news!

 

I’m Duane Matz and that’s Todays Living Word.