Slippery Speech — A LifeWords Devotion

It would be a pretty dangerous world if no one could believe what we said, or we could not believe whatever others have said to us. We do know that people will sometimes deliberately lie to us, or that certain statements can be misleading. But in general, we have to believe that words convey true meaning.

Back in biblical times, people used to swear oaths to back up the truth of what they were promising. The oath was meant to add weight to the integrity of the promise. In time, this became corrupt. By clever manipulation of words and phrases, people were able to get away with making false promises. Some oaths were seen to be more valid than others.

Jesus wants to do away with this. We ought not to need elaborate oaths to back up our verbal promises. Others need to trust our straightforward words. We are not to give ourselves “wriggle room” to get out of keeping a solemn promise. In our own day, we do need to swear oaths as in a legal situation. But we treat it as a formal requirement, understanding that we would speak the truth whether we swore the oath or not.

Words matter. Promises matter. When we use slippery speech to compromise those promises, we end up on a slippery slope to deceit and hurt. People of the Word, need to be people of their own word.

Blessings

David