When Words Lose Their Meaning · Group Guide

Discussion Questions

1. 1

   Read Matthew 5:33-37 together. James pointed out that Jesus is not banning oaths outright — God commands them in the Old Testament, and Paul takes them in the New. So what is Jesus actually going after here? What is wrong with the extra phrase we tack on to prove we mean it?

2. 2

   James described how the religious leaders graded their oaths — swear by the temple and it did not really bind you, swear by the gold in the temple and it did. What is the modern version of that? Where have you heard something technically true and deliberately misleading?

3. 3

   James took us back to COVID, when "follow the science" started to sound like an agenda and, in his words, everyone seemed to be talking with their fingers crossed behind their back. What does it actually cost a family, a workplace, or a church when words stop meaning what they say?

4. 4

   James signed five contracts and eighty pages of fine print before he was allowed to climb a wall with his friend Jonathan. In New Zealand he was handed a paraglider and pushed off a hill with no waiver and no helmet, and he said he preferred it. What would have to be true about a group of people for a handshake to work again?

5. 5

   James said Jesus wanted people so anchored by grace they did not need to be propped up by oaths — and pointed out that Peter denied Jesus three times under oath and got restored three times without having to grovel for it. Where do you catch yourself propping your words up, and what are you afraid would happen if you just said the plain thing?

6. 6

   Michelangelo was asked why he bothered with details nobody would ever see on the Sistine ceiling, and said he could see them. Name one place right now where your yes has not been a yes — a promise you let slide, a half-truth still standing. What will you say, and to whom, before we meet again?