2nd October 2024

2nd October 2024


Pray (ACts)


Read (Matthew 5:33-37 focus v34-36)


Message (Alan Burke)


The Pharisees had devised a get out of jail free card so that you would be able to get out of the promises that you had made. Now that might seem like something that isn’t a bad idea especially when you have made a commitment that you regret making. The problem is that if you can get yourselves out of the promises that you have made with little or no consequences then how can people ever trust you to do what you have said and you know that even if you didn’t abuse such a system there would be others who would. Jesus here teaches us not to swear. To swear means to make a solemn declaration or statement with an appeal to God. 


Jesus isn’t forbidden taking an oath when we are in a court of law or when we make a contractual agreement with someone where we make a commitment. Rather the issue at the time was that oaths, vows and promises that were made all the time, commitments were made all the time, but people swearing and not actually keeping their word. They believed that long as you didn’t swear to the Lord God then you would be ok not to keep the oath what you had made. Jesus gives some examples of those oaths that were made are used. For example, I swear by heaven, I swear by the earth, I swear by Jerusalem, I swear by my head and with each one Jesus also makes it clear why these things are wrong.


The reason why we shouldn’t swear by heaven is that it is God’s throne. Isaiah 66:1 ‘This is what the Lord says: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool.” (Is 66:1). Both of these things are the Lord’s, if the people swore on them they were ultimately swearing by God for they were the Lord’s. The heaven and the earth is the Lord and to swear by them was to swear by him. The reason why we shouldn’t swear by Jerusalem is that it was the city of God, the city of the great kings, Psalm 48:1-2, 1 Great is the Lord, and most worthy of praise, in the city of our God, his holy mountain. 2 It is beautiful in its loftiness, the joy of the whole earth. Like the utmost heights of Zaphon is Mount Zion, the city of the Great King. (Ps 48:1–2). The city of Jerusalem is Lord’s and again just like swearing by heaven and earth those who swear by them are ultimately swearing by God for Jerusalem is the Lord’s.


When you swear by heaven, the earth or Jerusalem you are saying that may heaven be destroyed if I don’t keep my promise, or may the earth be destroyed if I don’t keep my promise, or may Jerusalem be destroyed if I don’t keep my promise. These things though belong to the Lord God and to say "I promise” or to make an oath on these things is putting yourself in the place of God. Just because cause you have not used the name of God does not mean that you’re fine to swear and not to keep your word, it does not release you from what you have said that you would do.


Jesus also gives the example of swearing on one's head. The reason why we shouldn’t is that we cannot make even on of our hairs black or white. What this shows is that we do not have the authority over our own bodies, we can do nothing to halt the creep of age, people try to modify their bodies with surgery, injections and a whole load of cosmetic treatments, they are trying to have authority over their own bodies but none of us have authority over our bodies. The authority belongs to the Lord God, it is him who has authority over life and death, over the hairs on our head or lack of hair, and to make such an oath on our own heads is to say effectively put ourself in the position of the Lord God we’re saying that we’re the rightful Lord of of our bodies. We are made in the image of God and is only God who is the one who has authority over us. For the followers of Jesus, for his disciples it shouldn’t be necessary to prove the truthfulness of what they have said by making an oath. 


Pray (acTS)
 
Sing


WSC
Q105. What do we pray for in the fifth petition?
A. In the fifth petition, which is, And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors,” we pray, that God, for Christ’s sake, would freely pardon all our sins; which we are the rather encouraged to ask, because by his grace we are enabled from the heart to forgive others.
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