But I say to you, do not swear at all
When one is in the practice of taking oaths they may believe or implicitly act as though his regular, non-oath speech doesn't need to be true. Perhaps the one who makes use of oaths frequently imagines a scale of truthfulness where the requirements are much less when merely speaking casually. The point of oaths was not to be the only way one could be sure that what they heard from another was true. Oaths were meant to be a sort of social glue when the need for truth was too dire to leave merely in the hands of an individual. This is still how they function for us when someone swears to tell the whole truth, 'so help me God'. In a court case telling the truth could put the witness at risk and so they invoke God to help them as they give a true and complete testimony. But we do not infer from this that such a witness will be a habitual liar when not on the stand.
Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’
We are called to be a people who are truthful all the time, who only make promises we intend to keep, and who recognize our own limits in being able to make any kind of firm guarantees. We should be on the watch to be sure that there aren't cases for us which are, as it were, below the oath level, cases where the truth is, or at least seems to us to be, inconsequential.
do not swear at all;
not by heaven, for it is God’s throne;
nor by the earth, for it is his footstool;
Why would people swear by something less than God himself, as true covenant oaths would have had them do? It could only be if they were afraid of the full ramifications of an oath, or knew it to be inappropriate in the case at hand. Maybe they wouldn't go on to speak a blatant lie, but certainly it would be something less self-evident than "2+2=4". It would seem that the goal was to have wiggle room in the event that their statement did not bear the test of time. Most probably they wanted to invoke the hint or rumor of divine assistance in order to guarantee a promise that even they themselves knew at some level to be uncertain.
Is our speech so truthful that we don't need added assurance when we 'really' mean it? When we do make promises are we careful to not overstate the assurance we can provide, to always leave things with the conditional, "if the Lord wills"? This respect and reverence for the truth might seem like it would make us less likely to commit firmly to anything. We might think that simply recognizing the contingency of things would leave us the perpetual wiggle room we need to always change our mind about any promise we make. But it is not so. When it is merely we who change our minds and not circumstances that thwart us that is an example of not letting our 'Yes' mean 'Yes'. The Lord who is himself truth calls us to speak truly. The one who is the 'Yes' to all the promises of God (see Second Corinthians 1:20) calls us to speak our own 'Yes' sincerely.
When he arrived and saw the grace of God,
he rejoiced and encouraged them all
to remain faithful to the Lord in firmness of heart,
for he was a good man, filled with the Holy Spirit and faith.
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| Saint Barnabas |
Part of what made Barnabas such a great encourager of others was his commitment to the truth. When he rejoiced and encouraged others they knew he meant it, that he was not just acting so as to win favor. They could see the truth in his own commitment to the Lord and they desired to emulate the firmness of heart that he himself demonstrated. Just as he was a good man, filled with the Holy Spirit and faith, so too are we called to be men and women of faith filled with the same Spirit of truth (see John 16:13). When we fell compelled to compromise on the truth it is the Spirit himself who shows us a more excellent way.
While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said,
“Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul
for the work to which I have called them.”
Falsehood ought to be antithetical to creatures who are meant to use their speech in a way that is ultimately ordered to the right praise of God. Giving in to lies, even little ones, makes it harder to speak the truth sincerely. The Lord himself desires to heal us and make us creatures of integrity, capable of joining with the psalmist in his praise.
Sing joyfully to the LORD, all you lands;
break into song; sing praise.
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