Matthew 5:37
Matthew 5:3737Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ Anything more comes from the evil one.
The Watchtower applies "let your word 'Yes' mean yes, your 'No,' no" to integrity in everyday speech. Witnesses are encouraged to be honest, to keep their word, and to avoid evasive or ambiguous communication. The verse is read devotionally — it rarely functions as a check on organisational practice.
Hold the verse up against the Lösch declaration. In 2014, Governing Body member Gerrit Lösch signed a court declaration in Lopez v. Watchtower that "I do not direct, and have never directed, the day-to-day operations of Watchtower" and "I do not answer to Watchtower" — at the same time the Watchtower was telling Jehovah's Witnesses that "our spiritual health and our relationship with God depend on this channel" of the Governing Body (15 July 2013, p. 20). One of those statements was made under penalty of perjury. The other was made in the pages of the Watchtower itself. Pair with ("lying lips are detestable to Jehovah") and (Jesus: "I have spoken nothing in secret"). Jesus's standard for integrity in communication is the same standard the apostle Paul applied in : "we have renounced the shameful, underhanded things." A "yes" to members and a "no" to the courts is not the integrity Jesus describes here.