Matthew 23:21
“He who swears by the temple, swears by it, and by him who has been living in it.”
What does Matthew 23:21 mean?
When Jesus points out this logic, he's exposing how people were playing games with their oaths. They thought that swearing by the temple building itself was somehow less binding than swearing directly by God, but Jesus shows that this distinction doesn't hold up: the temple only matters because God dwells there. You can't separate the building from God's presence in it. This was part of a larger problem Jesus addressed, where people created elaborate rules about which oaths "counted" and which didn't, letting them off the hook from keeping their word. He's calling them back to something simpler and more honest: your word should mean something, period, and you can't wiggle out of your commitments through clever technicalities.