Sermon Tone Analysis

Have you ever been talking on the phone with someone and lost track of time?

This doesn’t happen to me very often.

I am usually acutely aware of time.

But this happens to some people.

My wife is one of them.

This is not negative to my wife or anyone like her!

I have her permission to tell this.

Sometimes she will be on the phone talking with someone else for a good 30 minutes or so.

Then, she sees the time and realizes that she needs to stop talking.

However, she also realizes that she didn’t talk about the 3 things that she called this person to talk about.

So, during the goodbyes, it’s “oh, wait, wait!

I need to tell you about this, and this, and this.” 15 minutes later, the phone is done.

Again, this isn’t against anyone who is like this, because James does this.

The first 3 words in the passage are “but above all”.

This is used sometimes as a sign of an epilogue, showing that the end of the letter is coming, but there are some important things that he really wants the readers to remember and apply.

He is saying “goodbye!

Oh, but wait!

There were these things that I wanted to specifically tell you that are more important than I said before.”

But above all, could also be translated: “Have this priority!”

He then tells his readers 3 things to focus on as he quickly closes the letter.

Each of these 3 things are dealing with speech, but dig through the speech into our attitudes.

Today, we will only focus on the first closing command.

We don’t know the situation behind these verses

1A.

Do not swear by anything

1B.

Do not swear by anything

We don’t know the circumstances of the church that James is writing to which would encourage him to bring this admonition.

Some people have conjectured a situation involving the poor Christians being tempted to use oaths to fend off creditors or obtain credit, even though they knew that they could not pay.

This is possible.

When a rich person comes to take away everything, leaving you destitute without the means to provide for your family, you could be tempted to do many things.

Ultimately, we do not know the circumstances.

All we know is what James writes.

He tells them not to swear by anything.

Contextually, Baker suggests that James puts this verse where he does because the poor Christians might be “tempted to use oaths to fend off creditors or to obtain credit for food and other necessities,” even knowing that prompt payment would be possible only with a miracle.

Now, swearing is not what we think of swearing today.

Some translations expand this word to “swearing an oath” or “taking an oath”.

This verse does not prohibit coarse speech, or speaking the Lord’s name when we shouldn’t, or having potty talk.

Other verses in the Bible definitely speak to that issue:

But, since James is not referring to those things, my sermon isn’t about those things.

James is referring to the oath-taking process.

The word here refers to affirming the veracity of one’s statements by invoking a transcendent entity, usually with an implied invitation of punishment if one is untruthful.

This was a very popular thing to do.

Consider the story of Herod and John the Baptist.

John the Baptist was in jail.

Herod was celebrating his birthday.

His daughter in law danced for him and his guests.

22

The king promised with an oath.

He invoked whatever god he thought appropriate, and he called on that god to punish him if he didn’t fulfill his promise to the girl.

Job, in the same line of thinking, was encouraged by his wife to “curse God and die” ().

This would have involved an oath.

People had sworn oaths all throughout history to prove the truth of what they were saying and to provide a guarantee for what they promised.

The childish phrase, “cross my heart and hope to die”, is a close resemblance to what was.

Literally the child is saying: if what I am saying is not true, I will die.

When God called Israel to be his special people, he created some boundaries on this oath taking.

He never prohibited oaths, but he demanded that someone be truthful to what they say.

gives us the 10 Commandments, which were given by God to be a sign of the covenant between Him and His people.

Commandment #3 speaks to these oaths.

Popular quoting of this commandment is: you shall not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.

This is speaking of these oaths.

People would take the name of their god and tie the power symbolized by that name to oaths, vows, treaties, etc.

This is basically invoking God’s name to guarantee the reliability of what a person says: consider it like making God a cosigner of your loan.

Someone who took the name of the Lord in vain, or who misused the name of Lord would wantonly put God on any promise, and then break it.

This concept is repeated in , a chapter that James has already referred to in his letter:

Don’t swear by anything

Don’t swear by anything

“If we truly understand patience and perseverance, we won’t need to swear”?

Remember to define swearing!

(Cross my heart and hope to die) Is this what Herod fell into with the head of John the Baptist?

Job was encouraged to curse God and die (tie in with previous section)

This is tied to invoking God’s name to guarantee the reliability of what a person says: consider it like making God cosign your loan.

God says: “If you are going to make an oath with my name, keep it!”

Those who keep these promises honor the Lord, but those who do not, dishonor the Lord and break the covenant they have made with their God.

Poor Christians could have been

Fast forward to when Jesus was on the earth.

The Pharisees had distorted these commands in Exodus and Leviticus.

They were teaching that if you swore an oath by God, you had to keep your promise, but if you swore an oath by anything less than God, you could break your promise.

This is not to say that legal oaths are bad, see how many times and oath is used in important undertakings in the Bible.

The things that happen when we try to circumvent clear teaching of Scripture!

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches against this distorted doctrine of the Pharisees:

He reminds his listeners that the point of the Law was honesty.

If you make a vow, keep it.

If you have every intention of breaking your word, don’t make the vow.

In saying these things, Jesus is telling his listeners that no matter what they made the vow by, God is in focus.

His name is at stake no matter what.

James, as he often does, picks up this teaching of Jesus and basically quotes it in our text:

The issue at play, as seen through the historical background of Jesus’ teaching on the Old Testament, seems to be rash or unrealistic vows that were often broken, thus destroying the character of the one taking the oath and destroying his Christian witness.

The issue is not legal oath taking, like in court rooms.

Oaths force us into behavior that does not glorify God.

It “comes from the evil one”,

Our speech can honor or dishonor God.

Our speech can honor or dishonor God.

The issue is a voluntary oath, to assure the truthfulness of what is said or promised

We should be people who are trustworthy, without needing to swear.

Or condemnation will come

We should live, speak, and act with integrity in all we do.

James’s unifying motif of simplicity versus duplicity continues.

These days, we don’t tend to call God as our cosigner for promises.

We don’t ask him to curse us if we break them.

However, if people know that we are Christians, whether we drag God into the discussion or not, they are dragging God into it.