Scripture Daily

Context No. 924 of 4322 · Matthew

Context · Reflection

Matthew 5:31-37: in context

31“It was also said, ‘Whoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorce,’ 32but I tell you that whoever puts away his wife, except for the cause of sexual immorality, makes her an adulteress; and whoever marries her when she is put away commits adultery. 33“Again you have heard that it was said to the ancient ones, ‘You shall not make false vows, but shall perform to the Lord your vows,’ 34but I tell you, don’t swear at all: neither by heaven, for it is the throne of God; 35nor by the earth, for it is the footstool of his feet; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. 36Neither shall you swear by your head, for you can’t make one hair white or black. 37But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes’ and your ‘No’ be ‘No.’ Whatever is more than these is of the evil one.

Still in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus takes up two more old teachings and deepens them. On divorce, where the law allowed a man to dismiss his wife with a certificate, Jesus tightens it, saying such casual divorce and remarriage amounts to adultery, protecting the wife who was being discarded. On oaths, where people swore elaborate vows by heaven, by earth, by Jerusalem, by their own heads, Jesus says do not swear at all; let your yes be yes and your no be no; anything more comes from the evil one.

Both teachings are really about the same thing: truthfulness and faithfulness that do not need loopholes. The divorce certificate had become a legal tool for men to trade wives while staying technically righteous, and Jesus cuts through the paperwork to defend the person being thrown away. The elaborate oaths were the same instinct in another form, a way of grading your own honesty, swearing hard when you really meant it and leaving yourself an out when you did not. Jesus says the whole apparatus is unnecessary for a truthful person. If your ordinary word is reliable, you do not need to prop it up with oaths; the swearing exists precisely because people's plain words cannot be trusted. His standard is simple: be the kind of person whose bare yes and no can be taken to the bank, so that no vow-stacking is required. Anything beyond that, the whole culture of clever wording and technical truth, comes from the evil one.

Can my plain yes and no be trusted without embellishment, or do I reach for stronger words and technicalities precisely where I am being least straight?

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