Watch your tongue!

In my personal devotions I have, for some weeks, been going through the letter from James, the half-brother of the Lord Jesus. I have now completed it (again!) and, earlier this week, I spent some time looking at just one verse. It was the 12th verse of chapter 5 which reads: "But above all, my brethren, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath, but let your yes be yes and your no be no, that you may not fall under condemnation."

In the earlier parts of the letter, James has shown his concern about "the tongue" - in other words, about our speech. For example, in chapter 3 he writes: "... the tongue is a little member and boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is an unrighteous world among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the cycle of nature, and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by humankind, but no human being can tame the tongue - a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who are made in the likeness of God.  From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brethren, this ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening fresh water and brackish? Can a fig tree, my brethren, yield olives, or a grapevine figs? No more can salt water yield fresh." (James 3:5-12; emphases added). Sadly, most of us know, all too well, the truth of those words!

Now the words of 5:12 may be interpreted, quite properly, as referring to the oaths that Jewish people of the time were prone to take. Jesus, Himself, referred to this practice: "Again you have heard that it was said to the men of old, 'You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.' But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is His footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let what you say be simply 'Yes' or 'No'; anything more than this comes from evil." (Matt 5:33-37). 

William Barclay explains that there was a distinction between 'binding' and 'non-binding' oaths. Any oath that used the name of God was binding; but those that did not, were not binding! This resulted in people becoming expert in what the Professor names "evasive swearing", and it was to this practice that the Lord Jesus referred.

However, Steve Maltz, a Messianic Jew, makes another valid point - not directly from James' letter! He points out that "Oh my God", "God help me", and similar expletives are all too common - and that they are blasphemous: a breaking of the Third Commandment. However, he points out that one place we will never hear, or read, any such exclamation is in a synagogue, or a devout Jewish home! Indeed, devout Jews have such a reverence for God that they won't even write, or say, "the Name". They will use "HaShem" (the Hebrew for "the Name"), or "G-d/L-rd", omitting the vowel.

Sadly, many who claim to be disciples of Jesus, use the Lord's Name in vain without even realising it! Just exclaiming the Name of God, or of Jesus, even if it is in 'code form', or thinly disguised, (e.g. "Jeeze", "O.M.G.", "Goodness gracious"), is not a reverent invocation, but a casual disrespectfulness. Jesus said: "I tell you, on the day of judgment men will render account for every careless word they utter; for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned." (Matt 12:36-37).

R.V.G.Tasker, in his Tyndale NT Commentary on James, writes: "There are few spheres of conduct in which the young Christian today needs to take the injunctions of the Epistle of James more to heart, than in this matter of frivolous and indiscriminate oaths, and the thoughtless mention of the divine name in general conversation." (p.125).

I suspect that those words apply, equally, to many who are not "young Christians"! "Set a guard over my mouth, O Lord, keep watch over the door of my lips!" (Ps 141:3).