Does this make my b*** look big?

Even I, blunt-as-a-hammerhead instrument, know better than to answer 'yes' to this doozy.

If you hesitate (crickets, crickets), then squeak out an unconvincing, 'no,' you may find yourself in your friend’s dog house, unable go about your business as usual.

In the life of yeses and noes, there are minefields galore.

Whether it’s to spare someone's feelings or other reasons we justify, we often say 'no' when we mean 'yes' and vice versa. Who can know the human mind? Women can be particularly capable of decoding well another’s yes-means-no and no-means-yes. And they assume God gave you the same decoding gene but He left this one out when he made me a woman. I spend a lot of time in the confining crucible of the friend dog house or am dismissed from duties all-together.

I wonder what the Word of God has to say about this matter.

“Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’ Anything more is from the evil one.” Mt 5:37

I know little how to apply Mt 5:37. But the Holy Spirit kindly gives us context clues. Prior to the challenging statement in Mt 5:37, Jesus refers to oaths:

“Do not take a false oath, but make good to the Lord all that you vow.” Mt 5:33

In other words, only make promises to the Lord that you can keep and make good to the Lord all that you promise. Sounds like good practice, not only with the Trinity, but also in dealings with regular flesh-and-blood folk.

Mt 5:33 refers to oaths to the Lord but doesn’t appear to address anything about honest answers to the b*** and other trip-you-up questions.

Since this one is not a vow to the Lord, sounds like you can go ahead and tell your friend that her b*** looks big. But I’m reminded of another scripture verse where Jesus commands us to love your neighbor as yourself (Mt 22:39), so if you’re ok with her telling you that your b*** looks big, go ahead and tell her that hers does too.