God used Covid-19 to increase children's Bible camp's number from a couple hundreds to thousands, streaming the camp live online.
Chinese high officers don't trust Chinese's own banks, sent their money overseas as US dollars to be saved. Why? They trust US Dollars and not their own Chinese stuffs.
Why we use God's name? To hope others will believe us.
孔子说 民无信不立, unfortunately, many governments do not take this seriously. Japanese Prime Minister Tanaka (田中 角榮) wrote this phrase of Confucius, a nation without the trust of her own people will lead to her own. Unless the people trust me, I cannot be their prime minister. Later, due to scandal, proved his mother's negative comment of him when she was interviewed regarding her son's career.
The lying shepherd parable was mentioned. Everyone should build relationship with truth in all aspects.
On Swearing oath for high federal officials in all countries: An important confirmation, ritual. Placing Bible/Quran in hand. Jesus said, don't swear, but here is exceptional because the government does not believe in the individual and since the government is set by God, it is permitted do to so (for office, in front of the government).
So the command against swearing is for personal relationship. Credit Card = 信用卡. The Western influenced banks record and measure a person's trustworthiness via credit card. The Chinese however use the countenance as the measure of trust. The Chinese has a saying: Primary life of one is his body, spirit & character. Second is your face, your history such that when people see your face, they trust you.
Tong recalled borrowing money from a relative for buying a car but the relative claimed that he didn't pay back even though he paid back the very next day. So he paid him again. Since then, Tong promised himself to have nothing to do with this relative in matters of finance. A painful lesson.
Another recollection of Tong: When he helped deliver money (that he didn't inspect) between Malang and Surabaya, he was accused by one party for loosing portion of the money. Since then, he had them write down the numbers and checked. (My take: Interesting that Tong would still do this for them...must be a big heart, or perhaps he's doing this for someone else and avoided the ones before completely in this matter).
So why do we need to swear, inevitably? 2 reasons:
1. If you don't pay attention before problem, problem will come. So, in such situation, swear before trouble comes may be inevitable.
2. When confronted with problem, swearing to God to proof one's own clean record.
Can we not swear? Only one reason: If you truly honest, everyone believes you. An honest/righteous person, God treats him with honesty/righteousness. Psalm 18:24-26. 乖僻的人，你以弯曲待他. 上帝不用乖僻待他。
God always rugi against the devil, because he never lies.The Devil is the father of lies.He'll deal with the liars in the day of judgment.
Does swearing solve matter in this society? No. It's only used to cover one's own lies.
Tong recalled a scammer using Tong's pastor friends name to cheat Tong's money. This guy is famous scamming this way with many. Tong once checked with the pastor and he never knew that guy. Tong even came across that scammer one time in the elevator and publicly exposed him. One day this guy even tried to cheat Tong's brother who's in HK. The brother got Tong to attend the meeting with the scammer since he recognized the name from Tong. Tong's brother called the cops after confirming this from Tong and the scammer was arrested.
So the lesson, there's no use in swearing. The best is honesty.
Of all U.S. presidents who swore by the Bible, only Nixon used 2 Bibles for his oath. But he was ruined by his scandal. Later Chairman Mao invited Nixon with red carpet, Chinese remembered Nixon's work in building the U.S. -China relationship. Chinese takes old friendship seriously. At the time, Nixon was not welcomed anywhere else. Nevertheless, Mao shamed himself for calling Nixon's scandal small matter being overrated.
Zeno (Anthologus, 3.36.19)
“Zeno said to a man who wanted to chatter more than listen “Young man, Nature gave us one tongue but two ears so that we may listen twice as much as we speak.”
Ζήνων πρὸς τὸν πλείω λαλεῖν θέλοντα ἢ ἀκούειν ‘νεανίσκε’ εἶπεν ‘ἡ φύσις ἡμῖν γλῶτταν μὲν μίαν, δύο δὲ ὦτα παρέσχεν, ἵνα διπλασίονα ὧν λέγομεν ἀκούωμεν’.
The Bible: Listen swiftly, slow to speak. Tong modified Zeno's quote with reformed theology:
God created us (Nature gave us...)....created two ears two eyes (two ears two eyes), so that we can listen and hear good and bad, right and wrong, but when we witness, we can only witness for the truth, right is right, wrong is wrong. If we do uprightly, God favors.