But I say to you, do not swear at all;
Jesus commanded his disciples to practice honest speech. It was not too be the case that only things to which they swore and about which they made oaths would be considered true or reliable. Rather even their common daily speech was to be regarded as trustworthy.
False oaths tended to deflate the value of regular speech. But they also sometimes were used when someone wanted to promise more than it was truly in his power to deliver, to assure others that the future would be thus and so when it was clearly beyond his control. There are certain times when society requires from a man more than he himself be assured that he can provide, such as when he is putting his life in the line in military service, or when he must speak the truth no matter what giving testimony in court. In such times, recognizing the weakness of any given individual, society correctly deems it necessary to invoke God to help guarantee the promise, elevating it to the level of an oath. But in general we are not meant to enlist God into guaranteeing that which is merely according to our whim. Most of what is out of our power should be left up to God to decide rather than making in seem, by verbal sleight of hand, that it is under our control.
Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” (see James 4:15).
We must not bring the prestige of that which belongs to God as collateral for our merely secularly purposes. To God belongs heaven, earth, cities and nations, and even our very bodies including every hair of our heads. These things sometimes seem so stable as though we might stake on them future contingents which they are not in fact so stable as to bear. We concoct ways in which we can give ourselves an absolute assurance on the basis of things which are merely temporary. But all of these things refer back to the God who made them. And trying to offer ourselves certainty in matters where it is not granted by God is to try to put ourselves in his place or to play God ourselves.
Let your 'Yes' mean 'Yes,' and your 'No' mean 'No.'
Anything more is from the Evil One."
In a world where we know our own weakness and are all too aware of that the future is unpredictable we may well be afraid to say anything, lest we be caught in contradictions. But the power of Christians is to be able to speak in such a world and remain truthful, precisely by remaining realistic, acknowledging our own weakness, and not bringing God's power to bear to make guarantees we are not authorized to make. It is in fact a chaotic, unpredictable, and ever changing world. We ourselves are flawed and inconsistent. And yet, in the midst of this world, and considering our own limitations, we can still learn to speak truthfully. After all, we know the one who is truth itself.
If we have been in the habit of treating our speech cheaply let us listen to Jesus and leave our former ways behind as decisively as Elisha left his former life to follow Elijah.
Elisha left him and, taking the yoke of oxen, slaughtered them;
he used the plowing equipment for fuel to boil their flesh,
and gave it to his people to eat.
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