Misunderstanding Oaths and Vows

Swearing oaths and taking vows is a foreign idea to many people in our day, even many Christians. Today, R.C. Sproul illustrates what happens when we fail to understand the significance of these appeals to God.

When I was a young man, I went to the youth fellowship of our church, and I frankly admit that the only reason I went was for the social programs that were involved there. But at the end of each fellowship meeting, we all had to gather in a circle and hold hands and recite the Mizpah Benediction. We recited that benediction, and it goes like this, “May the Lord watch between me and thee while we are absent one from the other,” which has its roots in the patriarchal period on the struggles that Jacob had with Laban and with his brother and so on. And when they met and they came to a certain agreement to end the hostilities between them and between their soldiers as it were, and they came to that agreement, they ended their meeting by saying, “May the Lord watch between me and thee while we are absent one from the other.”

The whole idea there was not “May the Lord protect you,” or “The Lord protect me while we’re absent,” but may the Lord watch you like a hawk because you violated so many promises to me in the past, and I’ve been as much of a crook as you have, and so the only one that can really arbitrate over us in terms of the history of this relationship is God Himself. Now how it ever devolved into a saccharine-type dismissal blessing for youth fellowship is beyond me, but that reflects how even the church in this day and age misses the point of an appeal to God in the swearing of an oath or the taking of a vow.