Is Your Yes a Yes?

“Again, you have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not make false vows, but shall fulfill your vows to the Lord.’ But I say to you, make no oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is the footstool of His feet, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Nor shall you make an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. But let your statement be, ‘Yes, yes’ or ‘No, no’; anything beyond these is of evil.”
– Matthew 5:33-37

When I was young my friends and I had all kinds of ways to ascribe credibility to what we said. Simple phrases like “I promise” evolved into radical statements like “I swear on my mother’s grave.” Thinking back, I am thankful that the Lord had forbearance with me over things I said. The full extent of Jesus’ teaching had not taken root in my mind in my younger years. I had not considered his directive to take no vows or swear by anything. Therefore I felt free to do what was common among people my age by finding any phrase possible that would provide a guarantee for the things I said.

For context, it seems in these verses that Jesus is making reference to passages in the Torah such as Deuteronomy 23:21-23 and Leviticus 19:12. The taking of vows is a familiar feature through the Old Testament, and generally not discouraged. Perhaps the most familiar to us is the Nazarite vow, explained in detail in Numbers chapter 6. At one point the writer of Acts quickly mentions that the apostle Paul “had his hair cut, for he was keeping a vow” (Acts 18:18). While it is not conclusive, one could reasonably think that the vow Paul had been keeping was the Nazarite vow. We also see that Hannah, married yet barren, prayed to the Lord and made a vow that, if the Lord would give her a son, she would dedicate the child to the Lord (see 1 Samuel 1:11). The Lord gave her the son, whom we know as the prophet Samuel.

What all this indicates is that vows were a common part of the Hebrew life of faith, which makes it seem a little odd that Jesus would take a hardline stance against oaths of any kind. We are prompted to raise the question, what was Jesus trying to address? The answer may become evident by revisiting the text of Numbers 30:1-2. Here, Moses spoke the following to the people of Israel: “This is the word which the Lord has commanded. If a man makes a vow to the Lord, or takes an oath to bind himself with a binding obligation, he shall not violate his word; he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth.” Regardless of what the precise vow may entail, this statement provides a core element to the integrity of taking any vow. Do what you have vowed to do.

Let’s think this through, shall we? Speaking for the Lord, Moses has just told the people that if they make a vow, they need to actually do what they have vowed to do. Here is my first observation: this sounds to me like something a person would not need to be told. “Do what you said you would do.” Does that really need to be laid out in the fine print? If so, I think we might be on to part of the problem. My second observation is this: why would this only apply when someone has taken an oath? “If a man makes a vow to the Lord, or takes an oath to bind himself….” So if I say I will do something, but do not put it in the form of an oath or some formal binding language, the requirement to follow through does not apply? If not, I think we might be on to some more of the problem.

To borrow the familiar phrase from the Apollo 13 mission, “Houston, we have a problem.” As we’ve seen previously, it appears to be a heart problem. In this case the problem manifests as lack of commitment to the words we have spoken. If the norm of our human condition is that our words carry little weight, it can be expected that we will at times need to find ways of adding credibility to what we say. How do we do that? One way is to do what borrowers from a bank often must do: put up collateral. If we appear to be a risky investment, collateral offsets the risk by providing something of value to “stand good” for the loan. Collateral is a way of addressing the problem.

Jesus appears to directly challenge expressions commonly used in order to do this. I can hear people in his day saying, “I swear by heaven,” or “I swear by Jerusalem.” What are they doing? You guessed it. They are trying to provide collateral for their words. There are actually two problems with this. First, as Jesus points out, the things people are using for collateral aren’t theirs to use. They don’t own heaven; that belongs to God. They don’t own the earth; that belongs to God as well. Jerusalem? Same thing. In fact, they can’t even legitimately swear by themselves since they belong to God also!

This leads us to the second problem, which is really the foundational problem. The way to resolve the problem is not to find the right kind of collateral, but rather to not need collateral at all. To paraphrase the point Jesus is making, the need for oaths and vows only reveals our lack of integrity. The resolution is not to be more serious about our vows; it is to get our hearts right so we don’t need vows at all. The language may seem a bit odd to us, but this is what Jesus means by “let your ‘yes’ be ‘yes’ and your ‘no’ be ‘no.'” If our words require more than that, we are not reflecting the righteousness of God.

One of the axioms in our Men of Honor program is, “my word is my bond.” How blessed we are when others see us with that much integrity. “She doesn’t need to make vows or promises; whatever she says, you can take to the bank.” By the grace of God, may our “yes” be “yes.”

See you along the Winding Path.