JESUS' SIMPLE INJUNCTION "Let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay" (Matthew 5:37) offers a profound guide for thinking and living. The command's immediate context is a prohibition against using routine oaths to God as a voucher of truthfulness. But for close students of Jesus' words, it is also a clear call to radical decisiveness in the practice of spiritual living. It's as though Jesus were telling us when we're flooded with doubting maybes or fearful not-sures to ask ourselves constantly, "So, is that a yes or a no?"
There's a deep Biblical basis and rationale for viewing Jesus' command in this way. In the third chapter of Genesis, after God warned Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the voice of temptation—the talking serpent—subtly challenged God's authority, saying to Eve, "Hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" (Genesis 3:1). Eve began to dwell on the serpent's reasoning, ruminating on what looked appealing to her, and then finally partook of the fruit of the forbidden tree. Though attractive to her eye, this tree was far from being nurturing and satisfying. Rather, it supplied fraudulent "knowledge of good and evil" (Gen. 2:17).
And this is where the yea/nay command comes in. Right where Eve could have given a simple and definite no, she chose instead to indulge in the conversation, then the fruit, and next to offer it to Adam. Adam, no better at taking a firm stand against evil, also tasted the fruit, and later offered evasive excuses to God. Both characters in the story made the mistake of equivocating, avoiding a firm no in response to temptation. In consequence, they took a fall. But we can learn from the mistakes of Adam and Eve. Where they did not reject the temptations of the serpent, we can. We can decisively refuse the invitation even to dialogue with the mentality that argues in favor of a power opposed to God's will, against His "very good" creation described in the first chapter of Genesis.
