I think way back like 400 episodes ago when we were in Matthew chapter 5, we got to a passage

that covers a lot of the same stuff that we're looking at right now in Matthew chapter 23

and this third woe to the religious leaders and the Pharisees and this particular woe, he doesn't

call them that title, he calls them blind guides, but this is the woe about oaths and doing what you

said you were going to do and not using weasel words to weaken the notion of an oath so that you

can maneuver out of it or maneuver in whichever direction you need to for self-serving purposes

or to prop up your side or political party, he's calling them out for that kind of nonsense,

we've been talking about it for a few days, but this is the second time we've had this conversation

because Jesus dealt with this topic at another point. Now for this to come up two times

at length in the gospel of Matthew and you could make the case that the subject comes up in passing

in some other places as well, but two times at length, for it to be that they give a deal for

Jesus to talk about it that much, that means that in his mind and probably knowing this would

resonate with the people who were listening to him talk, that means that almost surely in his mind

and Matthew editorially chose to include these things, so in the mind of Matthew, in the mind of

the audience, who both Jesus and Matthew understood, in everybody's mind, this really was one of the

problems. There was something broken about truth and basic personal integrity within the boundaries

of the religion that was dominant when Jesus showed up in the early part of the first century AD,

and I think when we talked about this last time, we did that whole princess bride montage with the

horrific voice acting where Wesley is hanging off the cliffs of insanity and Inigo is up there

and they have this whole discussion about his word as a spaniard and I swear by this or I swear

by the other thing, the point there being that between Wesley and Inigo in that situation,

there were clearly varying tiers of sincerity of Oathing, and if you Oathe on like this little thing,

...