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A woman wears a veil at her wedding day, which shows the virtue of her virginity, while reciting her vows. If you’ve been reading this month’s blog posts, you may have noticed that all of those “v” words are the words for this month, which all relate together.

This week’s final “v” word is vows. As in the opening sentence, we most often hear of vows at weddings. The vows are the verbal commitment that the bride and groom give to each other, to express their love and devotion for one another as husband and wife. But really, a vow is a promise, and it doesn’t have to do only with weddings.

In the book of Acts in the Bible, we read a story about a couple named Ananias and Sapphira. I encourage you to read their whole story, in Acts 4:32-5:11. We see in Acts 4:34b-35 we read that, “For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.” A bit later in Acts 5:2, we read that, “With his wife’s full knowledge [Ananias] kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet.” Ananias and Sapphira had made a vow to give the full sum of money from the sale of their land to the believers, but they broke that vow by withholding some for themselves. The direct outcome of breaking that vow was death for both of them.

Breaking a vow does not always result in death, but we are sternly warned against such things. James 5:12 says, “Above all, my brothers and sisters, do not swear—not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. All you need to say is a simple ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’ Otherwise you will be condemned.” The NASB version of the Bible has slightly different wording of this same verse: “But above all, my brethren, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath; but your yes is to be yes, and your no, no, so that you may not fall under judgment.”

We are warned against making vows that we cannot keep, because vows are not meant to be broken. Breaking a vow clearly means we will face judgment for doing so. We can trust God to always keep His vows. But we are sinful human beings, and unfortunately it is more likely that we will break a vow than to keep it. But I encourage you try your best to keep your word to others in every circumstance, especially if you have made a vow before God and others.