“But above all, my brothers, do not swear . . .”
James wrote this letter to his Jewish brothers scattered around the Mediterranean. 14 times he calls out to them with a particular command or concern. Count it all joy, don’t show favoritism, show your faith by your works, . . . many of them echoes of the Sermon on the Mount.
This one he labels as “above all”. But because swearing oaths is not prevalent in our culture it seems oddly ordered as being the most important.
To understand why, hear Christ’s words from the mount:
“Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ But I say to you, Do not take an oath 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 take an oath 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.
The first half of the Ten Commandments are about honoring God and protecting His name. Christ calls loving God the greatest commandment. James then rightly condemns the act of usurping His sovereign authority over the future as supremely important.
Then, James calls us to what is under our control — truth. The command (as we have seen many times is spoken in the imperative with the introductory “let”) is the verb “be”.
. . . let your “yes” be yes and your “no” be no . . .
Truth is what all the other virtues are built. One might say, it is the ultimate virtue.
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