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Thank you for the email regarding James 5:12.

Yes the scripture reads:

“Above all, my brothers, do not swear - Not by Heaven or by Earth or by anything else. Let you “Yes” be yes and your “No” be no, or you will be condemned.”

Now if you look up the word condemned, it simply means to be pronounced guilty.

It seems like a simple enough commandment…just do not swear. But sometimes life gets the best of us and we swear. This verse says it really doesn’t matter what you are swearing by…if you say “I swear to (anything)”, it is wrong. Just let your yes be yes and your no be no.

If you have trouble keeping this commandment, keep it in front of you through the week. Make memory verses to help you remember and place them everywhere. You may even need to try some rubber band on the wrist therapy.

Keep the emails coming and I will try to answer them to the best of my ability using scripture each time.

H.C. DeBoard III

Let’s begin by reading Romans 7:7-25. Today I will using the NIV.

Struggling With Sin

7What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “Do not covet.” 8But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead. 9Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. 10I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death.

11For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. 12So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good. 13Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.

14We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

21So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

TO ME, in the little wisdom God has blessed me with, I see that Jesus left us so many examples of the two greatest commandments because, well, frankly, we are not that bright. Do not take offense to my statement because I am talking about myself. If Jesus had left it with (1) Love God…and (2) Love your neighbor, I would have been way off in my interpretation of these two commandments. That’s why He left me so many examples of them.

Keep coming back and we will continue to break this down more. And leave your comments. I like hearing from you.

H.C. DeBoard III