Youth Group Connect - Just Say Yes or No
Context for Verse
- People in the first century swore oaths constantly, and they ranked them. An oath on God's name was fully binding, while an oath by heaven, or Jerusalem, or your own head counted for much less.
- Jesus takes out every tier of these oaths at once. Heaven is God's throne, the earth is his footstool, Jerusalem is his city, and you can't change the colour of one hair. Nothing is left that isn't already His.
- The Old Testament never banned oaths, it banned breaking them. Jesus goes after the workaround that people built underneath that. Aka. every oath is by God.
- The tension: Jesus is not asking for better oaths. He wants people whose plain word is good enough to make an oath pointless.
Verse
33. "You have also heard that our ancestors were told, 'You must not break your vows; you must carry out the vows you make to the Lord.'
34. But I say, do not make any vows! Do not say, 'By heaven!' because heaven is God's throne.
35. And do not say, 'By the earth!' because the earth is his footstool. And do not say, 'By Jerusalem!' for Jerusalem is the city of the great King.
36. Do not even say, 'By my head!' for you can't turn one hair white or black.
37. Just say a simple, 'Yes, I will,' or 'No, I won't.' Anything beyond this is from the evil one."
Questions
Pick 3 or 4. Spend the most time on Q2 and Q3.
Q1. People still do this constantly. "I swear on my life." "I swear on my mum." "I promise, for real this time." Why do we reach for it, and what does needing it say about how our normal words are heard?
Q2. Jesus knocks out every single thing you could swear by, and his reason each time is that it already belongs to God. What does that do to the idea of a promise that is only half binding?
Q3. Think about what you post, comment and send, and ask whether that is the same person sitting in this room. Jesus wants a yes that means yes everywhere, so where is the gap for you?
Q4. Someone whose word is always good can be genuinely hard work. They can't quietly back out and they can't just not turn up. What does it actually cost to be that person?
Q5. Name one promise you have made and not kept, or one you are about to make this week. What would "just say yes or no" look like in that situation?
Pray
- Pray for anybody carrying a promise they already know they have broken
- Pray that what we say online and what we say in person stop being two different things
The heart of this passage is verse 37. The problem is that there was the gap people had built deliberately between what they said and what they meant to do.
This isn't about swearing as in bad language.
It's also not a rule against courtroom oaths or wedding vows, because Jesus is pulling apart the tiered-oath dodge rather than banning serious commitments.
Pastorally: people live with a huge gap between the online self and the in-person self. This passage names the gap without shaming them. The goal is integrity, not one more reason to feel guilty.
Does this mean I can't swear an oath in court or make wedding vows? Jesus is attacking the oath-grading dodge. God swears an oath in Hebrews 6:13 and Paul calls God as his witness in 2 Corinthians 1:23.
Is this about swearing as in bad language? No, completely different subject.
What if I promise something and then genuinely can't do it? Then you go and say so, because integrity includes owning it when things change.
Why is anything past yes or no "from the evil one"? Basically, deception is the enemy's speciality and saying you'll do something then don't do it is deception.
Isn't it sometimes kinder to tell people what they want to hear? Kindness that isn't true is not kind, it's lying and deception. Plus, the truth always comes out at some point, so you're just delaying the pain.