Religiosity

"You don't make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace. In making your speech sound more religious, it becomes less true." - Matthew 5:34

I always knew the concept of sounding religious was sickening. I felt it was against Jesus' teachings. I assumed it's what the pharisees must have sounded like to regular jews, but I hadn't seen it written as explicitly as I did this morning. In Eugene Peterson's The Message it really stands out. I know for most people it has just become a way of speaking, they don't mean to fake piety, it is just a habit - a bad habit. I know that for me whenever people say things like "God bless you", "God willing", or use that soft spoken high pitch tone of voice that only devout Christians have mastered...I tune them out - it just sounds fake! The way I see it, the world should not recognize us by the way we speak, but by the way we live. We need true sincerety, not a show based on established rules of how to sound holy, because otherwise no matter what the message "it becomes less true!"