Curb the Contracts
“All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.” – Matthew 5:37 In Jesus’ time, there were no written contracts, because the price of ink and paper was prohibitively expensive. In fact, it’s estimated that the cost to pen each of Paul’s epistles was in the thousands of dollars, some say anywhere from $2,000 to $40,000 a piece! The excessive cost of writing things down demanded that there be another protocol for making legal agreements in the ancient East. In Jewish culture, the custom was that a consensus was reached, the parties would shake hands, and then they would swear by the Name of God that they would keep their promise. In essence, when they invoked the Lord in any agreement, they made a verbal contract. This was an important part of the legal system of the day. Though I don’t
