CHRISTIAN SWEARING？

Don't laugh. This was just the first impulse reaction I had one day, and I'm putting it up here, okay? I do that a lot. Some people think if you put stuff online, it outta be polished, really thought through...a lot of mine aren't. They're things I look at a decade later and want to go hide...I'm getting distracted. What was I saying?

Oh yes. When the apostle Paul was asked, if God is going to be gracious with us and forgive us, shouldn't we keep on sinning so we can keep showing others how merciful He is in forgiving us, he responded with a vehement, "GOD FORBID!" That expression is never translated--rather, translated so weakly, it almost made me mad.

I was trying to think of a Japanese equivalent, and as I said before, please don't laugh--for those of you who can read it, it seemed Paul had felt: 「え？そんなバカなことは、絶対ありえない。あってたまるもんか！」

"God forbid" seems to me the closest I can get to "Christian Swearing" in the negative sense, in the Bible. Except it's a lot more dignified and heavier, much more serious than the above, which can be said lightly, flipped off by someone in a state of inebriation and irresponsibility, completely forgotten when he is sober.

"God forbid" is more on the level of a temperate scribe. He never swears. But he's invoking the Name of God here, so you know he's got to be dealing with prohibition of a pretty serious nature.

A similar question is often asked in Christian circles today: "Shouldn't I be able to sin and offend you over and over, and you forgive me? After all, God does!"

Paul says: GOD FORBID. That is like saying, I can make Jesus a "whipping boy" on the Cross, and every time a brother sins against me, God pours out wrath against Him that I might forgive him. NO, A THOUSAND TIMES NO!!!!!!!

And if he could, I think Paul would've sworn. Or did he?