Henry Krabbendam - James - World Evangelical Alliance

shoulders, or an “oh, well.” The elaborate nature of Paul’s defense proves the
seriousness of the issue. One’s Christianity appears to be at stake!
In a nutshell, Christians keep their promises, their appointments, and
their agreements. Period! This applies to the big ones as well as the small
ones. In fact, there are no small promises, appointments, or agreements.
Therefore, Christians keep all of them, even if it implies their hurt (Ps. 15:4).
The only way to be released from a promise is to ask and receive permission
not to fulfill it. Scripture appears to know only two exceptions to this rule. If
someone under authority makes a vow, and it materially affects someone in
authority, the latter may nullify the vow. But it must be done immediately, or
the vow remains in force (Num. 30:3-8). Further, if the promise implies a sin,
it may not, and should not be fulfilled, contrary to Herod’s train of thought
(Mt. 14:1-12).
All of Scripture draws one line. God’s people should listen very carefully.
They should abstain both from making false and deceptive promises,
and from breaking any and all promises. Basically James echoes the words of
Jesus. Rather than forbidding “formal oaths in such places as courts of law,”
or “the light, casual use of oaths in informal conversation” (Burdick, 203), he
targets the heavy, intentional oaths in material deliberations that are designed
to gut rather than reinforce the dependability of promises and so to destroy
rather than undergird the veracity of transactions. Clearly, one’s status as a
Christian is at stake!
But there is more, much more! There is an opening phrase to explain,
“But above all.” This phrase has been puzzling, indeed baffling to most, if not
all, interpreters.
One commentator tells us that it serves “to mark a new paragraph” that
presents a brand new subject with at best only a formal association with the
preceding (Dibelius, 242). Still since this paragraph stands by its isolated and
unconnected self, there is simply no way to determine what “Above all” in
the present context could possibly signify, especially if it proves to be not
original but rather added by a later editor (Dibelius, 248).
A second commentator calls the phrase “odd,” if James were to mean
that his words concerning oaths contained “the single most important (message)
in the entire letter.” Most likely it means “to sum up,” “alerting his
readers that his letter is about to conclude” (Nystrom, 300).
A third one opines that James 5:12 cannot possibly be a conclusion “of a
series of commands that is singled out as the most important of them all”
(PDavids, 222).
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