REVIEW
FLIP CHART: SOM’S KEY VERSE, GOAL, MOTTO
“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness ….” (Mt. 6:33a).
The law sends us to Christ for justification; Christ sends us back to the law for sanctification.
FLIP CHART: Show new “Perfect Righteousness” chart explaining steps to coming to Christ (As a worm, mourning, meek, spiritual hunger/thirst with the result of legal righteousness). Explain moral righteousness, immediate moral change at conversion, gradual change through life’s challenges and speeding up moral change via CCRC (Concentration, Choice, Reflection and Confession/Thanksgiving). Repeat the verse, “By one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.” (Heb. 10:14) HAVE SOMEONE COME FORWARD AND EXPLAIN THE CHART.)
“The Beatitudes, carefully examined, descend upon us with eight successively humiliating blows. Perhaps they even make us question the genuineness of our faith. Next come the stunning metaphors of salt and light. Who can say he has fulfilled such a dynamic witness? And if that is not enough, then comes the statement, “Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven” (vs. 20), followed by six stringent illustrations of what our righteousness should be like, each of them incredibly demanding, each impossible in our own strength. Almost every line of the Sermon on the Mount, taken to heart, will flatten us! It seems impossible!” (Hughes, 139)
FLIP CHART: Go over John Stott’s outline of SOM. Show that 5:17-20 was an introduction to a Christian’s righteousness.
INTRODUCTION TO SIX ANTI-THESES (Mt. 5:21-48):
These six anti-theses (anti-concepts, anti-statements) — SHOW THE 6 ANTI-THESES CHART — are Christ’s true interpretation of the law over against the scribal misinterpretations. Thus we have a comparison of Christian righteousness and pharisaic righteousness, as is anticipated in vs. 20 (Stott, 78-79).
In 5:20 we are challenged to a ‘greater righteousness’ than that of the Pharisees and Scribes. The summons is to a deep inward righteousness of the heart. It is new fruit coming forth from a new nature. Christians do not dodge the law (a pharisaic hobby) but exhibit a keen appetite for true inner goodness and a righteousness which they hunger and thirst after continuously.
The key to understanding the six anti-theses is to always think “form and content.” The Pharisees focused on form (the right way to worship, ceremony) whereas Jesus focused on meaning and heart attitude. Jesus is saying that correct attitudes precede correct actions. Our attitudes and intentions are the key to our actions. Remember the key to a beautiful wedding is love and not ceremony – SHOW THE WEDDING FLIP-CHART.
INTRODUCTION
Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago ‘Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.’ But I tell you, do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; or by the earth for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No,; anything beyond this comes from the evil one (Mt. 5:33-37).
Phil Yancey in his book Soul Survivor mentions that good writing does not just restate what you already know and believe but instead forces you to “ponder.” I think that is true of good teaching too. Hopefully this study of “oaths” will help us to re-evaluate ourselves, to ask ourselves the question, “Am I an honest person?”
- The Problem of Lying
- The Purpose of Oaths
- Keys to Interpreting Mt. 5:33-37
- Pharisaic Distortion of Oath-taking
- Oath-Taking Today
- A Christian & Honesty – Our Testimony
AM I AN HONEST PERSON?
I. THE PROBLEM OF LYING
Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No,; anything beyond this comes from the evil one (5:37)
It is interesting that in Ephesians after three chapters of talking about the heavenly position of the church he then spends three chapters talking about the Christian’s moral life including the matter of lying (Eph. 4:25).
“There is nothing so powerful as truth and often nothing so strange” (Daniel Webster); “Nothing is sweeter than the light of truth” (Cicero); “Truth is the highest thing that man may keep” (Chaucer).
The Jewish teachers of Jesus day had always insisted on the paramount obligation of telling the truth. “The world stands fast on three things, on justice, on truth, and on peace.” Four persons are shut out from the presence of God – the scoffer, the hypocrite, the liar, and the retailer of slander.” One who has given his word and who changes it is as bad as an idolater.” (Barclay, 158)
But truth-telling has not been natural for the human race and lying is as old as the devil. In fact in John 8:44 Jesus says, “When he (the devil) lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” The first time we meet the devil in the Garden of Eden we find him lying to Eve, “You will not surely die ….” And Cain dodged the question, “Where is your brother Abel” by responding “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
Lying comes from an evil heart and also from the evil one.”…anything beyond this comes from the evil one.”
Lying certainly has produced a “credibility gap” today. How do we know if we are hearing the truth?”
“The natural credibility gap is widened even further by popular novels, movies, television, music, and advertising – – in which truth, fantasy, and outright falsehood are blended in mixtures impossible to unscramble. Truth is so scarce that everyone is suspect.” (MacArthur, 319).
QUESTION: How does TV blend truth, fantasy and outright falsehood? Music? Advertising? Movies? Politics?
OBJECT LESSON: Show Qwest advertisement
TV – life situations solved in 20 minutes; Talking Heads and Spin-Doctors.
ILL: Lying is certainly endemic in our society. Sometime ago a New York Times article revealed that 91% of people regularly don’t tell the truth. 20% admit they can’t get through the day without conscious premeditated lies…” (Matthew Rogers).
ILL: On May 20, 2001 Adrian Dieleman in a sermon gave the following information:
A two-year study of nearly 9,000 people, more than two-thirds of whom were in high school or college, found significant numbers of the students engaged in or willing to engage in lying, cheating and stealing.
“Clearly the youth of today didn’t invent cheating, stealing and lying, but they’re perfecting it,” said Ralph Wexler of the Institute of Ethics, a non-profit organization based in California. The institute conducted the survey. Among the findings:
* More than a third of the students claimed they would lie on an application or resume if necessary to get a job; 16 percent of the high-school group and 18 percent of the college crowd admitted, in fact, that had done so. And 21 percent of the collegians approved of falsifying a report if needed to keep a job. Of the older group of students, more than a third also said they have lied to bosses and a third of customers during the past year.
* 61 percent of those in high school and 32 percent of those in college acknowledged they had cheated on an exam during the previous year.
* 33 percent of the high-school group and 14 percent of college students said they shop-lifted within the past year. Many (33 percent, high school; 11 percent, college) also said they had stolen from parents or relatives.
FLIP-CHART ACTIVITY: What are some synonyms for lying?
Synonyms: fabrication, fairy tale, falsehood, falsity, fib, mendacity, prevarication, story, tale, untruth, whopper
Related Words: distortion, exaggeration, half-truth, ambiguity, equivocation, defamation, libel, slander, perjury, bluff, pose, pretense, humbug, jive, nonsense, fallacy, misconception, myth, misinformation, misrepresentation, misstatement, deceit, deceitfulness, dishonesty, duplicity, fraudulence
ILL: The movie “Liar, Liar” with Jim Carey, is about a boy who made a birthday wish that his father, a lawyer, would be able to avoid lying for a day. The movie showed all of the difficulties he got into when he had to stop lying. Lying was such a part of his character and nature that not to lie was completely upsetting to his life.
HUMOROUS STORY:
A couple was pulled over by the police. The police officer asked the man to step out of the car and show his license.
“Did you realize you were doing 85 miles an hour back there?”
The man says, “Officer, that would be impossible. I’m the most law-abiding driver you’ve ever seen. I never exceed the speed limit, no matter my circumstances.”
The policeman leaned through the open window of the car and asked the wife, “Is that true?”
“No Officer, it’s not, he drives like a maniac, he speeds wherever he goes, his driving scares me to death.”
The policeman wrote out a ticket. Then said, “And I also noticed you didn’t have your seat belt on, sir.”
“Officer,” the man replied, “with all due respect, I value life too highly. Buckle up, that’s my motto.”
The policeman looked in through the window again and asked the man’s wife, “Is that true?”
“Are you kidding? I’ve never seen him even wear the thing, you’d probably find cobwebs on his seat belt.”
The policeman wrote out another ticket.
The man leaned in through the window and screamed, “Woman, what are you trying to do to me? Keep your big fat nose out of my business!”
The officer bent down a third time and asked, “Ma’am, does he always talk to you like that?”
“No” she replied, “only when he’s drunk.”
Thomas Aquinas, the great Catholic scholar of the Middle Ages wrote, “People could not live with one another if there was not mutual confidence that they were being truthful to one another…as a matter of honor, one person owes it to another to manifest the truth.”
Even criminals who live by lying demand on honesty among themselves. Their survival as criminals depends on not lying to each other.
We know that lying is endemic in our society. But am I a liar? Do I lie? Am I an honest person?
ILL: The great preacher and writer George Macdonald wrote to his son on December 6, 1978, “I always try – I think I do – to be truthful. All the same I tell a great many lies.” I identify with that. I am speaking to someone and suddenly realize that what I am saying is not the truth.” (Hughes, 124)
CLASS ACTIVITY / QUESTION? List some common lies that Christians tell on a regular basis.
I promise; I’ll pay you back tomorrow; it will only take a minute of your time; I’ll call you back; this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you; it’s finished and sitting on my desk; the check is in the mail; I’ll be praying for you; I mean this sincerely; trust me.
ILL: Perhaps you have heard about the man who was traveling on a dinner flight. When he opened his prepackaged meal, right on top of the salad he saw an enormous roach. When he got home, he wrote an indignant letter to the president of that airline. A few days later, a special delivery letter came from the president. He was all apologies. “This was very unusual, but don’t worry. I want to assure you that that particular airplane has been fumigated. In fact, all the seats and upholstery have been stripped out. We have taken disciplinary action against the stewardess who served you that meal, and she may even be fired. It is highly probable that this particular aircraft will be taken out of service. I can assure you that it will never happen again. And I trust that you will continue to fly with us.”
The man was very impressed by the letter until he noticed something. Quite by accident, his original letter had stuck to the back of the president’s letter. When he looked at his own letter he saw a note at the bottom that said, “Reply with the regular roach letter.”
ILL: Four students arrived late for their examination one day. They entered the classroom and solemnly told the teacher they were detained due to a flat tire. The sympathetic teacher smiled and informed them that unfortunately they had missed an exam. But willing to let them make up the exam she gave each of them an exam paper and a pencil and then sent them to the four corners of the room. She assured them they will pass if they can answer just one question. The students turned the paper over and read the question, which read, “Which tire?”
II. THE PURPOSE OF OATHS
Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago ‘Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.’ (Mt. 5:33).
Old Testament Verses on Vows:
You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain (the third commandment, Ex. 20:7).
You shall not swear by my name falsely, and so profane the name of God (Lev. 19:12).
When a man vows a vow to the Lord, . . . he shall not break his word (Numbers 30:2).
When you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not be slack to pay it (Deut. 23:21).
Why Oath-taking?
The only reason oaths are necessary is because humans are born liars. Oath-taking is a pathetic confession to mankind’s proneness to lying, to our basic dishonesty.
Dr. Helmut Thielicke writes: Whenever I utter the formula, “I swear by God,” I am really saying, “Now I’m going to mark off an area of absolute truth and put walls around it to cut if off from the muddy floods of untruthfulness and irresponsibility that ordinarily overruns my speech.” (Hughes, 127)
Since fallen people cannot be trusted, we have oaths. Oaths would not be necessary in a perfect, sin-free world. Just as hard-heartedness necessitated divorce, so untruthfulness necessitated oaths.
Oath-taking is God’s and our antidote to lying, a means of sorting out truth from falsehood.
An Oath Settled Everything.
“… the oath confirms what is said and puts an end to all argument” (Heb. 6:16).
An oath put an end to all argument because people bound themselves with a curse if they did not fulfill the vow, “All these now join their brothers the nobles, and bind themselves with a curse and an oath to follow the Law ….” (Nehemiah 10:29).
An oath is simply an appeal to an omniscient God who searches the hearts. A person under oath to God is discharged from an earthly tribunal.
Of course these people believed that God existed, that he was the Righteous Judge, and that any deception under oath to him would be severely punished. Today people do not believe that so in court they take an oath with the understanding that lying under oath is perjury and deserves time in prison.
III. KEYS TO INTERPRETING MATTHEW 5:33-37
But I tell you, Do Not Swear At All: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; or by the earth for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No,; anything beyond this comes from the evil one (Mt. 5:34-37).
George Fox, the great founder of the Quakers, provided this famous rejoinder to the judges at Lancaster who sentenced him to prison for refusing to swear over a Bible shat he would tell the truth: You have given me a book here to kiss and to swear on, and this book which ye have given me to kiss says, “Kiss the Son,” and the Son says in this book, “Swear not at all.” I say as the book says, and yet ye imprison me; how chance ye do not imprison the book for saying so?” (Hughes, 127)
QUESTION: Was George Fox right? Is it wrong for a Christian to take an oath? How should we interpret this passage? Why?
Jesus did not come to destroy the law (Mt. 5:17) and oath taking was a part of the law.
Very few Christians interpret this antithesis to literally mean that all oaths are prohibited. Some feel that when Jesus uses the words “never swear” he is using it as a hyperbole. Remember a hyperbole is a planned exaggeration to make a point, emphasize a truth.
Universal affirmations and negations are not always to be universally applied, but are to be limited by their occasions, circumstances etc.
Paul wrote, “I am made all things to all men that I might by all possible means I may save some” (I Cor. 9:22).
If this language is taken without limitation it means that Paul became an adulterer to win adulterers, or he became a murderer to win murderers, or a liar to win liars.
When something is approved in one passage and prohibited in another it should not be considered as absolute in either case.
Examples of oath-taking in the Bible:
Abraham confirmed his promises to the king of Sodom with an oath (Gen. 14:22-24).
Abraham made his servant Eliezer “swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of earth” that he would not chose a wife from Isaac from among the pagan Canaanites (Gen. 24:1-10, 24).
David made an oath and, “swore to the Lord, and vowed to the Mighty One of Jacob” (Ps. 132:2).
Paul made an oath, “I call God for a record upon my soul, that to spare you I cam not as yet unto Corinth.” (I Cor. 1:23).
Our Lord did not rebuke the high priest from challenging him with the oath, “I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God” (Mt. 26:63).
God gives Oaths
“I swear by myself, declares the LORD that because you have done this and have not withheld your son …” (Gen. 22:16)
“By myself I have sworn, my mouth has uttered in all integrity a word that will not be revoked: Before me every knee will bow; by me every tongue will swear.” (Isaiah 45:23).
“When God made His promise to Abraham, since there was no one greater for him to swear by, he swore by himself, saying, “I will surely bless you and give you many descendents.” (Heb. 6:13-14)
QUESTION: God does not lie so why would he give an oath?
He doesn’t give an oath to increase his credibility. He wants to challenge us to believe and he wants to confirm our faith. God condescended to provide an oath was not because He is untrustworthy but because we are often unbelieving. (See Stott, 101).
IV. PHARAISAIC DISTORTION OF OATH TAKING
… either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; or by the earth for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. (Mt. 5:34-36).
If, in spite of this command not to swear at all, it is clear that the Bible supports oaths, what then was Jesus saying? It seems that he was talking about the abuse of oath taking and the deceit that was involved in oath taking.
There was frivolous oath taking that is taking an oath where no oath was necessary and evasive oath taking, that is using oath as a means of evading the truth. The purpose of oaths was to eliminate lying but instead the way oaths were used was adding to lying and deceit.
MISUSING GOD’S NAME
“You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name” ( Ex. 20:7 / Third Commandment). “You shall not idly utter the name of Jehovah” (Darby); “No using the name of God, you God, in curses or silly banter …” (The Message).
“in vain, misuse” = lightly of frivolously, in false affirmations, or profanely (Amplified)
Profanity or using God’s name profanely in our culture means saying “God damn you” or “Oh God!” or “God Almighty!” (God, My God, God dammit, Jesus, Jesus Christ)
Profaning God’s name that is the emphasis here is saying “God is my witness” and lying in the same breath. Profaning God’s name is lying under oath, what we define as perjury.
God is concerned about his name. The second request in the model prayer is “Hallowed be Thy name.” (May your name be kept holy, held in awe, honored, respected)
The Lord commanded, “Do not swear falsely by my name and so profane the name of your God” (Deut. 19:12).
Using God’s name in a false, deceitful oath was clearly forbidden. But were there some oaths that were more flexible? The key was to take the divine name out of the oath.
Thus only those oaths that included the divine name were binding. God was a partner in the oath. If you broke the oath you were breaking the law and a curse would be your fate. But you didn’t have to worry too much about keeping vows and oaths that did not include the divine name.
So, for the Pharisees, committing perjury only meant lying under oath when the divine name was used. Perjury was a serious sin and they hated it. But if the name of God was excluded from the oath, you were not committing perjury if you broke the oath and lied.
The spirit of the Third Commandment was to avoid lying. They focused on form and made a way to lie without committing perjury.
SWEARING BY A LESSER THING
You had to swear by something. If you swore by a lesser thing and broke your word at least you were not bringing God’s name into disrepute.
So in our text it says that the Pharisees taught that you could swear by heaven, earth, Jerusalem, or your own head. Philo, the great Jewish philosopher from Alexandria, said it was good to swear by your parents. We “swear by all that is holy” or “swear on a stack of Bibles.” People always want to swear by something greater than themselves. The key with some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law was to keep the name of God out of the oath or vow.
You see a much fuller explanation of their formula in Matthew 23:16-22:
“How terrible for you, blind guides! You say, ‘If anyone takes an oath in the name of the temple, it means nothing. But anyone who takes an oath in the name of the gold of the temple must keep the oath.’ You are blind and foolish! Which is more important? Is it the gold? Or is it the temple that makes the gold holy? “You also say, ‘If anyone takes an oath in the name of the altar, it means nothing. But anyone who takes an oath in the name of the gift on it must keep the oath.’ You blind men! Which is more important? Is it the gift? Or is it the altar that makes the gift holy? “So anyone who takes an oath in the name of the altar takes an oath in the name of it and of everything on it. And anyone who takes an oath in the name of the temple takes an oath in the name of it and of the One who lives in it. And anyone who takes an oath in the name of heaven takes an oath in the name of God’s throne and of the One who sits on it” (Mt. 23:16-22).
QUESTION: What were the Pharisees missing when they concluded that swearing by something less than God would invalidate the seriousness of their oath?
The formulas were wrong, praying by heaven or earth or Jerusalem or my head because there is no part of the world “on which God has not engraved the marks of his glory.”
The whole universe is God’s and to swear by part of it is to bring God into the equation. You can’t eliminate God when vow-making. Formulas are irrelevant. He is always there, always listening and always involved since it is His world. You can’t keep God out of any transaction.
So making an oath without including his name does not cancel out the validity of the oath. Any oath / vow is always valid since it is always made in the presence of God.
We live in a “God-bathed” world! Deliberate consciousness that the first heaven is the air around us, that God is alive in it, and that, bidden or unbidden, God is awfully present there. All prayer, including short prayer (“Help, Lord!”), (and making of a vow, giving an oath, promise) is inescapably and gloriously local. (Christianity Today, Sept. 2006, pg. 51).
It is so easy, so natural for us as Christians to forget the presence of God with us and start living by formulas!!!
FRIVOLOUS SWEARING
There are thousands of things that are true that we don’t need to swear to. Oaths should only be used in situations of real necessity. You don’t need to swear oaths (use oaths) in ordinary conversations. It appears that the people of Jesus’ day used oaths continually to verify the truthfulness of their statements.
EVIL USE OF OATHS
QUESTION: Dallas Willard calls oath-taking the modern equivalent of our “song and dance?” Why would he make that comparison?
The purpose of oaths is to convince people, to manipulate them so that we can have our way. “With swearing (oaths) we are making use of people (manipulating), trying to bypass their understanding and judgment to trigger their will and possess them for our purposes. Whatever consent they give us will be uninformed because we have short-circuited their understanding of what is going on. Swearing is, then, a version of what is often called a “song and dance.” (Dallas Willard, Divine Conquest, 164-175).
Oath making (promise making) is verbal manipulation in order to get our own way.
“Oaths, instead of becoming a mark of integrity, became a mark of deceit” (MacArthur).
ILL: How can you tell if a lawyer is lying? He is moving his lips. How can you tell if a Pharisee is lying? He is making an oath.
It is wrong to lie. It is wrong to use the name of God in a lie. It is wrong to use a part of his creation in support a lie. This is what was happening when a person was swearing by heaven or earth or Jerusalem or his own head.
The lesson Jesus is seeking to hammer home is that formulas are not relevant; what is relevant is truth.
V. OATH TAKING TODAY
Profanity is misusing God’s name in frivolous and/or harsh meaningless ways in ordinary speech. Profanity also means using God’s name to buttress a vow that we do not keep. Perjury is lying under oath.
Swearing falsely in the Third Commandment is not specifically cursing but is wrongly affixing God’s name to a statement in order to manipulate a person and get our own way.
QUESTION: What are some oaths that are common in speech today?
As God is my witness
I promise
I promise on a stack of Bibles
I swear that I am telling you the truth
I cross my heart and hope to die
I swear on my mother’s grave
By heaven I am telling you the truth
VI. A CHRISTIAN AND HONESTY – OUR TESTIMONY
Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No,; anything beyond this comes from the evil one (Mt. 5:37).
A list of promises sometimes broken by Christians:
You promised you would be faithful to your mate.
You declared your expenses amounted to a certain figure.
You promised your son you would play ball with him.
You signed a contract that committed you to certain things.
You told your neighbor you would return a tool you borrowed.
You swore to tell the truth when you took the stand.
You told someone you would pay back the money you owed.
You said that you would pray.
You said that you would return a phone call.
You said that you would show up at 6:30.
The Essenes, a Jewish sect in Israel at the time of Jesus were known for their honesty. Josephus writes of them: They are eminent in fidelity and are ministers of peace. Whatsoever they say also is firmer than an oath. Swearing is avoided by them and they esteem it worse than perjury. For they say that he who cannot be believed without swearing is already condemned” (Barclay, 161).
God desires “truth in the innermost being” (Ps. 51:6). He hates “a lying tongue” (Prov. 6:16-17). “Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord” (Prov. 12:22). Jeremiah wept over Jerusalem because “lies and not truth prevailed in the land” (Jer. 9:3). The destiny of liar, according to Rev. 21:8, is the lake of fire.
We live in the presence of God! We grieve the Holy Spirit of God when we lie. “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God ….” (Eph. 4:30).
“Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? He who … [does not] swear by what is false [swear falsely] (Ps. 24:3-4).
Telling a lie for a Christian is as bad as perjury because we are lying in the presence of God. We need to become, according to Bill Hybels phrase, “habitual truth tellers.” The question is, can people take our word to the bank?
Our lives should be such that a person would never dream of asking an oath from us.
John Stott said, “When one monosyllable will do, why waste our breath by adding to it.”
READ: How does this text translate into life? Simply this: Oath-taking is permitted, but it is not encouraged. In civil life oath-taking, as in the courtroom, is permitted, and when one does so, he does not sin against Christ’s teaching. Also, on rare occasions it may be necessary, as it was for Paul. However, oaths are not to be a normal part of our everyday conversation. In normal relations oaths should never fall from our lips. Kingdom men and women do not need such devices. Their commitment to truthfulness should be evident to all. (Hughes, 129)
ILL: The promise made in Lonsesome Dove to take the body of his friend all the way from Montana back to Texas to bury it beside a river.
SO WHAT???
1. Lying is endemic in our culture. Are we slowly being transformed by our culture and also becoming dishonest individuals?
2. Do I have pet lies that I tend to overuse, e.g. “I will pray for you.”
3. Hard to understand passages are usually not hard to understand
when we use basic principles of Biblical interpretation.
4. The Bible clearly supports the whole matter of oath-taking.
5. God wants us to believe and is so serious about our believing that to encourage us He takes an oath on Himself.
6. God is always present, always observing, always listening to all our speech and longs for us to be transparent and honest in all things.
7. We may not make promises and oaths but we also have to avoid the modern “song and dance” when talking to people. We are not to manipulate people with words that are lies.
8. Telling a lie must be something that becomes completely foreign to a Christian. We must be in every sense people of our word and people that are truthful.