Matthew 23:20
“He therefore who swears by the altar, swears by it, and by everything on it.”
What does Matthew 23:20 mean?
Jesus is pointing out the logical trap the religious leaders of his time had created. They'd developed elaborate rules about which oaths were "binding" and which weren't, supposedly based on what you swore by. If you swore by the altar itself, they said it didn't count, but if you swore by the gift sitting on it, you were bound. Jesus exposes how ridiculous this is: you can't separate the altar from what's on it or what makes it holy in the first place. When you swear by one part of something sacred, you're implicitly swearing by the whole thing and everything connected to it. His point is that these leaders were playing word games to wiggle out of their commitments rather than simply being people of integrity who kept their word. It's a call to honest dealing and straightforwardness in how we relate to God and each other.