I swear……….no don’t.
Matthew 5:33-37 “Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform your oaths to the Lord.’ But I say to you, do not swear at all: neither by heaven, for it is God’s throne; nor by the earth, for it is His footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Nor shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black. But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.
But I swear I ____________ . Been there done that. Probably many times in a bad context or even worse if we swore by God, or the pinnacle swearing by His name knowing it was a lie. The scriptures above are a fascinating study and point us primarily to the Third Commandment: Exodus 20:7 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain. It was considered legally binding to take an oath to God’s name, but also could have been a means to cover up a lie. We are plainly being told not to swear at all in verse 34.
The backbone of this scripture is telling the truth. We can’t improve on anything by attaching the power of something to the “by it” to our speech. It can become a condemnation if used lightly and in the wrong context. Matthew Henry puts it: “That we must not swear lightly and irreverently, in common discourse: it is a very great sin to make a ludicrous appeal to the glorious Majesty of heaven, which, being a sacred thing, ought always to be very serious: it is a gross profanation of God’s holy name, and of one of the holy things which the children of Israel sanctify to the Lord: it is a sin that has no cloak, no excuse for it, and therefore a sign of a graceless heart, in which enmity to God reigns.”
37 But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ Our word is our cloak that we wear every day. I have struggled with this in a daily context of running a business and making promises that I break, or can’t keep. For instance telling someone I will be there and canceling the appointment for any reason. That really bothers me. Christ would place His ‘stamp’ by using the words “Verily, verily” on matters of importance, or as His “Yes be Yes”. Verily, Verily was our Savior’s ‘yes be yes’, and quoted 25 times in John’s gospel in the King James version. Think before you make a promise, or an oath the next time. It is only as good as the cloak you wear.
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