Latest / Reformed Thinking / Cherish the Truth and Speak It Simply | John Piper

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Cherish the Truth and Speak It Simply | John Piper · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome truth seekers to the Deep Dive.
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Today we're taking a close look at a really striking instruction
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from Jesus. It's one that kind of shapes
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every conversation we have. It's basically a call to honest
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speech in all things, and it challenges how we typically
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think about reliability and, well, our own words.
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Indeed, and we'll be drawing from John Piper's insights
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today, specifically from his book All the Jesus Commanded.
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We're focusing on his reflections on the command.
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Do not take an oath. Cherish the truth and speak it
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simply. Piper, as you probably know, is
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a leading contemporary theologian, and his work often
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pushes us to rethink common assumptions about Christian
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living. Absolutely.
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So our mission for this deep dive is to really unpack why
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Jesus gave this instruction to avoid oaths.
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What does it actually mean for our daily speech, and how does
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it reveal just how central truth is in God's eyes?
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You might find by the end of this that you're playing yes or
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no gains entirely new weight. So let's just jump right into
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it. Jesus delivers this striking
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instruction in Matthew chapter 5, verses 33 through 37.
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Now this is part of the Sermon on the Mount, right?
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Where Jesus often takes Old Testament laws and teachings.
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And well, he raises the standard.
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He calls his followers to a higher form of righteousness.
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And here he goes beyond the previous understandings of
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promises and sworn statements. He sets a whole new direction.
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That's a really crucial distinction to make right at the
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start. The older instruction, which you
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find scattered in the Old Testament, was mainly about not
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swearing falsely and also ensuring that you actually
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fulfilled what you would swarm to the Lord.
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It was about regulating oaths. OK, so managing them.
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Exactly. Managing their proper
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performance within, you know, a legal and moral framework.
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It acknowledged oaths as legitimate, though obviously
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serious. They were used to confirm
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testimony, seal covenants, things like that.
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But Jesus's instruction, it's a complete paradigm shift, a total
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change. He moves from just regulation to
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outright prohibition. He says it's so clearly, but I
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say to you, do not take an oath at all.
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Wow, no ambiguity there. None.
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This isn't some minor adjustment.
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It's a foundational redirection for God's people, urging them
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toward an entirely different standard of verbal honesty.
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And the command is, as you said, explicit.
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Very little room for wiggling out of it.
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Jesus says avoid any oath, whether it's by heaven, by the
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earth, by Jerusalem, or even by her head.
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He lists these specific examples because they were the common
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ways people spoke back then. They were the cultural habits,
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right? The go to phrases, yeah.
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People would often invoke these things, maybe thinking it was a
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kind of lesser oath. Perhaps it felt like it made
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their promise stronger without directly using God's sacred
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name. Hoping to avoid the biggest
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consequences if they broke their word.
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That seems to be the lying thought, but Jesus just
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demolishes that idea. He reveals that these objects
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aren't separate from God's domain at all.
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He explains heaven, that's God's throne, the earth, that's his
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footstool, Jerusalem, his city, and even the hair on your head
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which you can't change, the color of yourself, that changes
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only by His guiding hand. So every oath, no matter what
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you swear by. Implicitly appeals to God's
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authority and his involvement in everything.
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There are no safe zones outside his rule.
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It's all his. So instead of these oaths, Jesus
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gives a very clear, very fundamental instruction for our
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speech. He says let what you say be
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simply yes or no. That's the core of it.
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Super simple. Just yes or no.
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Just yes or no. But then he adds this
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clarification that is frankly startling.
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It should really make a stop and think he says anything more than
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this comes from evil. Comes from evil.
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That's strong language. Incredibly strong.
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Think about what that implies. The very need for extra
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assurances for declarations beyond a simple yes or no points
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to a problem. It suggests a world where words
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themselves are suspect, where trust isn't the default setting.
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Which, sadly, sounds a lot like our world.
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It does. It's a striking indictment of
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how fallen human communication has become.
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Imagine like a business deal where just a handshake and a
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simple yes was all you needed. No contracts, no lawyers.
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Card to picture sometimes. Right.
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Jesus is saying that the world we live in, the one filled with
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contracts, disclaimers, endless legal language just to bind
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people to their word, well, it operates under a shadow of
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mistrust, and that mistrust ultimately has its roots in
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evil. So this instruction, this
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command, it really has two main aims, as Piper points out.
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First, it's designed to stop people from using verbal
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evasions to get out of keeping their promises.
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Cutting out the loopholes. Exactly.
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It cuts off all those pathways people might try to use to
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wiggle out, to claim they didn't really mean it because they
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swore by the wrong thing or whatever.
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Jesus command removes the excuses.
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Second, and this aim is, I think, even more profound, it's
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meant to cultivate such genuine honesty in his followers that
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any need for oaths just becomes, well, unnecessary.
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So our character should be enough.
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Precisely. Picture a community or a family
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or a friendship where a person's simple yes or no is just
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accepted. It's their bond.
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Their word is their truth. That's the challenging standard
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Jesus holds out. It's a call to such purity and
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consistency in speech that these extra declarations aren't needed
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anymore. To build trust, our character
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should speak louder than any oath we could possibly take.
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That makes so much sense. It really is revolutionary,
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isn't it? And countercultural, Yeah.
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But it clearly stems from this view of truth.
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It's just central to Jesus thinking.
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So to really grasp the force of this command, we probably need
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to dig into how Jesus views truth itself.
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It's not just like a nice idea. That's a vital point, absolutely
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vital. The Scriptures again and again
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reveal that truth is precious. Way beyond what we can fully
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grasp sometimes, both practically for our daily lives
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and spiritually in our connection to God the Creator.
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It's not some abstract thing to be debated away in, you know,
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university lounges. It's tangible, essential,
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foundational to reality. Just think about how for most
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people, their very existence relies on truth every single
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day. The reliability of information
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isn't a minor detail. It's the absolute basis for how
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we interact, for our safety, for society to even function.
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We make so many assumptions based.
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Countless assumptions everyday that things are as they appear,
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that the information we get is accurate.
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Our lives are literally built on it.
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Let's think about some critical situations where truth is
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genuinely life or death, or at least impacts well-being in a
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huge way. Imagine a parent rushing a child
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to the ER. The doctor needs to know with
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certainty, did the baby swallow that missing needle?
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Yes or no? No room for ambiguity there.
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None. Or is the water you're about to
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drink safe? Is that person approaching you
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actually a friend or someone with bad intentions?
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When you get on a plane, you trust the pilots, have accurate
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info about fuel, right about the destination.
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You have to. You have to.
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When you have surgery, you believe the team knows your
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condition, knows the procedure. You expect to get better, not
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worse. Did that desperate 911 caller
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say 11th Ave. or 11th St. Getting that wrong could mean
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someone dies. In every single one of these
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cases, the correct, factual, truthful information is
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absolutely vital. Wrong information leads to
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disaster, lost lives, broken trust, terrible harm.
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And this reliance on truth goes right to the core of human
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relationships, too. Think about marriage bows.
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You trust Those promises to love and cherish will be honored.
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But they weren't just made for, I don't know, money or status.
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Right, the foundation of the relationship.
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Exactly, without truthfulness in those deep intimate connections,
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genuine relationship just can't exist.
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It crumbles. It's not just the big vows
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either. It's the steady flow of
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sincerity, of reliability day-to-day that holds people
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together. It builds intimacy, security,
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even just the basic running of society depends completely on
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accurate information. Like that 911 call example
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shows. Hearing and relaying vital info
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correctly can literally be the difference between life and
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death. So for the vast majority of
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humanity, truth absolutely matters.
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And it matters ultimately. Our survival, our peace, the
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very fabric of our communities rests on it.
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It's fascinating how practical it is.
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Our lives are just woven with a need for truth, even if we don't
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always think about it that way. But what are those folks who
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maybe theoretically dismiss objective truth?
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You hear that sometimes truth is relative.
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How does Jesus's perspective cut through that?
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That's a really insightful question, because it highlights
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something crucial. Even people who publicly dismiss
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objective truth often show through their actions that they
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actually recognize its value when it affects them personally.
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Their actions betray their words, you mean?
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Pretty much, yeah. Piper uses this compelling
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example of the relativistic professor.
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You can picture it. University lecture hall
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professor is confidently talking about how reality is subjective.
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Truth is just a social construct.
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It varies, you know. Yeah, I've heard that kind of
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talk. Right.
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But then later that week their electricity bill comes and
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there's an extra 0 on it. Or maybe their paycheck is
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wrong. Suddenly all that abstract
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relativism just vanishes. Poof.
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Suddenly, truth is very objective.
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Oh, absolutely. Objective truth isn't just
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desirable then it's demanded they'll complain about the
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error. They wouldn't find it funny if
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the company said, well, that's our truth about your bill, not
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yours. No, they certainly wouldn't.
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It reveals that for all the academic theories, when truth
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hits their wallet or their comfort or their convenience,
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suddenly it's very real and very necessary.
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So this leads us to think about why some people seem to
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disregard truth, at least publicly.
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Often those who do maybe certain powerful leaders or figures with
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academic security, they can do it because their position
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Shields them from the immediate real world consequences of their
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views. They're insulated from the
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fallout. In a way, yes.
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A dictator might not care about truth because they have the
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power to impose their own version of reality, at least for
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a while, through force or propaganda.
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Some academics might play intellectual games in the
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classroom, but they don't have to live out those ideas.
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When they go home, they're protected.
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But for most people, for everyday folks just trying to
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navigate life, truth matters intensely.
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It's pressing. It's real, and Jesus himself, he
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demonstrates this profound love for truth, this clear aversion
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to all kinds of falsehood throughout his entire life and
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ministry. His whole existence was
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basically a living demonstration of truth.
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He's the ultimate example for us.
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He explicitly confirmed the 9th commandment right?
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Do not bear false witness. That wasn't just a nod, it was
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affirming a standard God had set long ago.
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He also warned that deceit starts in the heart.
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It corrupts a person from the inside out.
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So it's not just about the words themselves.
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No, it reveals something deeper about the inner spiritual state
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of the speaker. And Jesus viewed religious
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hypocrisy as a particularly serious form of lying.
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People using piety, religious acts, outward shows of faith to
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cover up evil or selfishness. In his eyes, they were acting
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like sons of the devil. That's incredibly strong
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language again. It is.
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It links that religious pretense directly to Satan, showing the
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spiritual danger of that kind of duplicity.
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Remember his encounter with Pontius Pilate?
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Jesus declares His whole reason for being born for coming into
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the world, was to bear witness to the truth.
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He says everyone who is of the truth listens to his voice.
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That was his mission. Unveil truth and body truth.
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And Pilate famously asks what is truth, but doesn't wait for an
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answer, right? He missed the answer, standing
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right there in front of him, the embodiment of truth itself.
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And most strikingly, Jesus goes even further.
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He says I am the truth. Not just that he speaks truth,
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but that he is truth. Exactly.
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He is the standard, the benchmark for what's real,
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right, good, beautiful. He contains 0 error, 0 falsehood
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in his being. He sought only the glory of the
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Father who sent him, and in him there's no falsehood at all.
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So when people didn't believe him, Jesus didn't blame the
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truth itself. He pointed to the unbelieving
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heart. You said people turn away from
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the light not because they think the light is false, but because
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they love darkness. The problem is with the
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receiver, the human heart's disposition.
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That shifts the responsibility, doesn't.
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It it does, the truth stands firm.
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It's our response to it that's in question.
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And then before he left earth, before ascending, Jesus promised
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to send a helper, and he called this helper the Spirit of truth,
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the Holy, the Holy Spirit, not just a comforter, but a guide
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who leads believers into all truth.
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The Spirit's work includes testifying about Jesus,
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confirming his claims. His identity is truth, helping
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believers grasp who Christ really is.
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And the Spirit helps us not just know truth, but be molded by it,
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making it effective in our lives for spiritual growth.
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Jesus actually prayed for this. He prayed that believers would
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be sanctified, set apart, made holy by truth.
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And he stated plainly, Your word is truth.
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So truth has an active role in making us holy.
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Absolutely. It's a dynamic process.
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Truth isn't just information, it's the mean by which God
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transforms us to align with His character and purposes.
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OK, this paints a picture of truth as incredibly vital,
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foundational to God, to reality, to our own spiritual lives.
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So why? Why did people, even religious
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leaders back then, put so much effort into trying to get around
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it? What does that tell us about
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ourselves when we try to create loopholes for our words?
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Seems like such a human thing to do.
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That's a really penetrating question, and it takes us right
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to the heart of these human tactics for, well, sidestepping
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honesty, tactics Jesus confronted directly, seeing them
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as coming from a dark source, from evil.
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It really reveals a basic misunderstanding not just of
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truth, but of God's relationship to his creation and his
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creatures. Piper points to some common,
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almost childlike ways people try to manipulate promises, things
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many of us might even remember doing.
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Like crapping your fingers. Exactly.
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Crossing your fingers behind your back when you make a
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promise. Or maybe the more dramatic Cross
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my heart and hope to die. Yeah, I remember those.
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They seem innocent, maybe, but they reflect this inherent human
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tendency, even when we're young, to find ways to escape keeping
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our word. Or sometimes it's about trying
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to reinforce words that maybe even the speaker instinctively
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feels aren't quite trustworthy on their own.
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The need for the gesture shows a lack of confidence in the word
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itself. Right, the simple word doesn't
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feel like enough. Now in Jesus day this tendency
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showed up in more sophisticated, even religious sounding forms.
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A common approach was using oaths that deliberately avoided
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naming God directly creating these.
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You could call them technical evasions.
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These weren't just casual remarks.
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They were meant to be binding declarations, but with a kind of
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built in escape clause. They operated under what Piper
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calls a very devious logic. People would swear by heaven or
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by earth, by Jerusalem, by my head.
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Their twisted reasoning went something like this.
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If God's name wasn't explicitly mentioned, then the oath wasn't
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really binding in a divine sense.
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The loophole logic again. Exactly.
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They thought, well, heaven and earth and Jerusalem in my head
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can't actually punish me if I break my word.
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Only God can do that. So they convinced themselves
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they weren't really in trouble if they broke these kinds of
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oaths. Trying to manipulate the rules.
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Trying to gain the system? Yeah.
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Creating a way to be dishonest while keeping up a facade of
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piety. But Jesus just completely
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rejected this whole line of reasoning.
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He dismantled it. He explained.
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As we mentioned, everything you swear by is intrinsically
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connected to God. Heaven is his throne, earth his
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footstool, Jerusalem his city. Your hair is creation, so any
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oath, no matter what external thing you invoke, implicitly
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calls upon God's authority anyway.
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You can't escape his oversight. There's no.
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Getting around him. No getting around him, His
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presence, his authority covers everything and the underlying
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flaw in this whole practice. It showed a really small,
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constricted view of God and truth.
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It suggested truth was insignificant, something you
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could manipulate with clever word games, And it suggested God
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wasn't really concerned with honesty unless you used his name
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in just the right, specific way. Making God seem kind of distant
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or legalistic. Right.
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And Jesus counters that forcefully.
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He basically says no truth is precious beyond your wildest
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imagination, and God is behind every single molecule in the
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universe. And he is always concerned that
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his creatures be truthful. This correction reveals a much
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deeper understanding of God's omnipresence, his detailed care
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for creation, and his constant concern for moral integrity.
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So if that kind of evasion by invoking lesser things was bad,
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it sounds like the Pharisees managed to make it even worse.
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What was their specific system? You are absolutely right.
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Beyond those general evasions, Jesus saved some of his
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strongest language, his righteous fury for the
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Pharisees, because they were teaching even more elaborate,
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more sophisticated methods of evasion.
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And this was particularly egregious because they were the
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religious leaders. They should have known better.
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It showed how far they'd strayed.
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OK, So what was their system? It was complex and frankly,
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overtly self-serving, designed purely to provide loopholes
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while making them look religiously smart.
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They actually taught that swearing by the temple meant
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nothing. It wasn't binding.
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But if you swore by the gold of the temple, that was binding.
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Seriously. Seriously.
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And similarly, an oath by the altar was nothing but an oath by
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the gift that is on the altar. That one counted.
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That's just bizarre. It creates this totally
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artificial hierarchy. Exactly.
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A bizarre artificial hierarchy of holiness.
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So you could make a promise, but if you hadn't invoked the
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binding element, the gold or the gift, you felt no moral or
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spiritual obligation to keep it. It was a legalistic trap built
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for dishonesty and Jesus's rebuke.
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It was unmistakable, scathing. He called them blind guides and
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blind fools. Strong words.
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He points out their fundamental error, their blindness.
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The gold sacredness comes from the temple and the gift
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sacredness comes from the altar. The holiness isn't in the
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material itself, it originates entirely from their connection
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to God, His presence in the temple, His acceptance of the
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ulcers offerings. They were valuing the created
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thing over the Creator. Precisely, they were valuing the
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gold or the gift over God himself who made those things
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holy. They completely missed the
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source of all holiness and truth.
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And the deeper issue Piper points out was this desire to
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somehow make peace with falsehood.
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They did it by valuing stuff, material things, or these human
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made distinctions over the divine source of sacredness.
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They effectively shrunk God down.
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They diminished his overarching concern for simple truth,
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replacing it with their own complex loophole ridden system.
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It wasn't just an intellectual mistake then.
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No, it was a profound spiritual failure.
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It revealed a really distorted, self-serving view of God's
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character and his clear moral standards.
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They were basically trying to make God's truth fit their
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convenience. This has been incredibly
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insightful, really laying out the background and the problem
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Jesus was addressing. So pulling it all together, what
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does this mean for us now? This clearly isn't just about,
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you know, not saying I swear anymore.
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It feels like a call for a total shift in how we relate to truth
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itself. A radical call to integrity in
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every single word, recognizing our words matter because of who
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God is. You summarized it perfectly.
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That's exactly it. Jesus's view of truth is
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absolute. It's foundational.
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It flows directly from God's own nature, and because of that, it
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demands absolute honesty from us, His creatures.
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This isn't just a suggestion for being polite, it's a divine
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standard for all human communication, woven into the
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fabric of reality itself. Remember, truth itself flows
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from a divine source. God is inherently connected to
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every part of creation. Piper's phrase is powerful
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behind every molecule in the universe, and he is
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consistently, intimately concerned that his creatures
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speak truthfully. His own word is truth.
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That's the ultimate standard. Everything else is measured
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against it. So truth isn't something we
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invent or bend. Not at all.
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It's something we align ourselves with because it
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reflects God's character and how He's ordered his universe.
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To speak truth is to speak in harmony with the Creator.
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And think about the opposite, deceit.
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Where does that come from? Lying isn't just a minor fault,
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a slip up. Jesus identifies it as
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destructively evil. He states quite plainly that
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lying originates with the devil. He calls Satan a murderer from
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the beginning and a liar and the father of lies.
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That draws a very stark. Line, An unmistakable line in
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the sand. When we choose to speak
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falsehood, we're not just making an error.
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We are, in a sense, participating in the character
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and actions of Satan. We're aligning ourselves with
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the adversary of God in humanity, Turning away from
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truth means aligning with Satan's character.
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Lying speaks out of the devil's own corrupt nature.
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It's acting in concert with the enemy.
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And remember how seriously Jesus viewed religious hypocrisy using
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piety to cloak evil. Yes, calling them sons of the
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devil. Right, which tells us that
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truthfulness is a matter of fundamental allegiance.
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Whose character are we reflecting in our lives in our
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words? It's a spiritual battle, and our
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speech is one of the main battlegrounds.
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So therefore, the command to just speak simply, yes or no.
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It summarizes this divine standard in the clearest way
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possible. It captures the essence of what
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God expects, nothing less than perfect integrity in every word
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we utter. This means cultivating a
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lifestyle of such deep integrity, such consistency,
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that our simple affirmation or denial carries its full weight.
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It's reliable. No need for extra guarantees.
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Absolutely no need for external guarantees, no special gestures,
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no solemn declarations, and definitely no legalistic
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loopholes. Your word, just your plain word,
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should stand as true and reliable on its own.
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It's a call to a level of character where your simple
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statement is inherently trustworthy because you are
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trustworthy, and as a result, the whole practice of taking
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oaths just becomes unnecessary. It's redundant because your
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ordinary speech is already fully trustworthy.
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There's no difference between a casual truth and a solemn truth.
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In God's eyes, all truth is equally precious, and it must
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all be upheld. The very need for anything more
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than this, like oath or endless contracts or fine print, that
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need comes from a world where honesty is doubted, a fallen
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world exactly where deceit is common and where evil impulses
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promote falsehood. It's a sign of sins, corruption
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of human communication at its very root.
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Wow, this whole deep dive really does challenge us to think about
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how we speak every single day. It's clearly more than just the
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specific words we use. It's about how we say them and
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what are yes and no actually mean for our lives as believers
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and for our witness to the world around us.
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It genuinely makes you stop and consider the weight of your own
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words. It truly does.
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The practical outworking of this instruction from Jesus touches
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every single interaction we have, everyone from the most
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mundane, everyday conversation to the most significant
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decisions we make. It calls us to a radical re
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evaluation of our speech. So integrity becomes the
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absolute foundation. Our simple word is sufficient
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because it's backed by our character, by who we are
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becoming in Christ. This implies a steady sincerity,
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A consistency, and all our communication.
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It eliminates any kind of hierarchy of truthfulness.
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No white lies or small untruths allowed.
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Not in God's economy. All falsehood is opposed to the
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divine standard of truth. Every word we speak, whether
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it's in a formal meeting, a casual chat, even in our own
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internal thoughts, should be reliable and line up with
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reality. And the purpose of the command
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going back to the oaths is to remove any possibility of
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pretending we can justify breaking a promise through some
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verbal trickery, no matter how clever we think we are.
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God sees through it. He sees right through it.
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He's not fooled by our devious logic or our self-serving
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interpretations. His gaze go straight to the
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heart, to the intention behind our words and to the character
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they flow from. So honoring God in our speech
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becomes a direct, natural result of living this way.
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Since God is intimately concerned with truthfulness
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throughout His creation behind every molecule, our honest
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speech reflects His character. It honors Him in every part of
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our lives. It acknowledges His presence
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everywhere and His ultimate authority over all reality.
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When we speak truly, we are in a very real way imitating our
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Creator, who is truth Himself. And finally, there's this clear
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call to purity, purity of heart and life, that strong link Jesus
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makes between deceit, spiritual defilement, and the devil.
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It makes truthfulness a matter of deep spiritual purity.
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It's about our allegiance to Christ, who is the truth.
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So choosing truth is choosing Christ's way.
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Exactly. To embrace truth in our words
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and actions is to walk in the light.
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To embrace falsehood, even in ways that seem small or
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justifiable to us, is to align with darkness.
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It's a daily decision, isn't it? To live in the way of Christ,
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reflecting his nature, His glorious character in every
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single verbal expression we make.
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What a compelling deep dive seriously into Jesus call for
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simple, radical truthfulness. It genuinely shapes how you
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think about every conversation, doesn't it?
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From just casual chitchat to the most serious discussions.
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It really calls us to a new level of integrity that starts
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with our plain, everyday words. It absolutely does, just knowing
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that our simple yes or no should stand entirely really on its
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own, reflecting not just our intention at the moment, but a
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standard set by God Himself. That gives you a lot to
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consider. It really demands a kind of
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searching self examination, doesn't it?
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How do we actually use language? What do our words truly
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represent about our hearts? So for you, our listener, maybe
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consider this as you go about your week.
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How might your daily communication better reflect
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this call to simple truthfulness, where your plain
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word is just a sure thing, trusted, without needing extra
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declarations or reassurances? What would it look like for your
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yes to always mean yes and your no to always mean no in every
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area of your life? And maybe ask yourself, what
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might it look like to consciously reject any devious
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logic or self-serving evasions in your own life, recognizing
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God's omnipresence and his constant concern for all truth,
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whether it seems small or big? How might a renewed reverence
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for truth flowing from your core character in Christ
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fundamentally change your interactions, your
25:44
relationships, and your very walk with Him?
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We really hope this deep dive has provided some valuable
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insight and given you much to ponder and pray about.
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Join us next time for another deep dive.