James 3:1-12: Power and responsibility in speech

2 For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. 3 If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. 4 Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. 5 So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! 6 And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. 7 For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, 8 but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. 10 From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. 11 Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? 12 Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.

I. The tongue directs the course of all of life

James 3:2–5 ESV

If anyone can manage to not stumble in his words, he is perfect

This is a hypothetical statement that is also an impossibility

Has anyone never misspoke?

Maybe only me, but I fairly regularly say things that I later think were maybe not the best

Illustration: When we thought Kelsey might be pregnant in our first year of marriage, I said, “Kelsey, we are standing upon the precipice of doom and destruction, and a baby would push us over the edge.”

No one is perfect in all of their words

Perfect = telos, mature, complete, perfect, arrived

James 1:4

James 1:4 ESV

4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

James is saying that the mark of a truly mature, complete person is the person who is able to perfectly control their mouth

If he can control his tongue, he can control anything

He can “bridle” his whole body

James proves this point with two illustrations: a horse and a ship

Example one: Bits in the mouths of horses

Large, powerful, majestic animals

The whole beast is steered by their mouth, particularly the bit put in it by man

Example two: Rudders in large ships

Ships are very large

Ships are driven by strong winds

But all of that impressive potential is at the end of the day controlled by a very small rudder

So also the tongue

A very small member

Yet makes great boasts

Often, this is used in a negative sense in the Bible, as in arrogant boasting in rebellion against God

But here, it can easily also have a neutral sense, as in the tongue has a legitimate claim to possess great power

Application: Your tongue largely directs your life

Your ability to chart your life’s course will depend in large part upon your ability to control your tongue

Your words will dictate the extent to which you know and are known by others

Your words will greatly affect your reputation in the eyes of others

Illustration: The boy who cried wolf

He lied so much that people no longer regarded him as a trustworthy source of information

No one took him seriously because he was so frivolous with his words

What do your words reveal about you?

Do you have the reputation of a person who gossips about others?

Do you have the reputation of a person who can never be serious, who only ever jokes?

Do you have the reputation of a person who is cruel and hurtful?

Do you have a reputation as a person who tells the truth?

Do you have the reputation of someone who is kind to others?

Your gospel witness will depend largely upon your ability to control your tongue

People will take you seriously or not depending on the manner in which you use your words

The way you speak about anything at all will affect how people receive your testimony of the gospel

Transition: James uses yet another metaphor to transition into another point: The tongue is not a neutral thing, amoral like the bit or the rudder. Rather, it’s default tendency is toward evil and destruction, first symbolized by fire.

“How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire!”

II. The tongue tends toward great evil and cannot be tamed

James begins by emphasizing and affirming the metaphor he has used: the tongue is indeed a fire

This is followed by a description of the destructive nature of that fire

The tongue has great destructive potential

Roast, Burn

The tongue is a world of unrighteousness set among the body

John Calvin said about this text, “a slender portion of flesh contains the whole world of iniquity.”

All evil flows through, is expressed, and comes to us in the power of the tongue

This raises an important reality James will return to: The evil of the tongue reveals and expresses the evil reality of the heart

Matthew 15:10-20

Matthew 15:10–20 ESV

10 And he called the people to him and said to them, “Hear and understand: 11 it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.” 12 Then the disciples came and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?” 13 He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. 14 Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.” 15 But Peter said to him, “Explain the parable to us.” 16 And he said, “Are you also still without understanding? 17 Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? 18 But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. 20 These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.”

The effects of the tongue upon human life

It stains the whole body

It sets on fire the entire course of life

It is set on fire by hell

Your tongue and your speech to not tend toward neutral

This is because the tongue is a wild thing that cannot be controlled or tamed

Every beast can be and has been tamed

But no person can tame the tongue

Not, “no one has tamed the tongue, at least not yet”

Instead, no one can tame the tongue

It is a “restless evil, full of deadly poison”

Profound example of this: with “bless” or “praise” God and we curse people made in his image

We bless (praise) God, but we curse people - what does this mean?

To shame, scorn, dishonor or humiliate another person

To call upon God to cut a person off from any possible blessing and damn them to hell

Application: The default tendency of our speech is toward destruction and evil

Sometimes we justify terrible things that we say about or to other people based on a misconception of justice

You don’t drift toward holy, helpful, kind, beneficial use of your words

You drift toward destruction, fire, corruption, evil

We think we are justified in saying terrible things about people because, “they deserve it” or “someone needs to say it”

This is pretty much constantly what happens in the political realm of our country

Example: I saw a post from a Christian of a photo of Governor Brown wearing a face mask in a press conference, and the caption they posted was, “if only it was a plastic bag”

But this also happens in the Christian world towards each other

Be tear each other apart for theological differences

Just go to youtube, watch a video about any kind of touchy theological subject, and then look at the comment section

We need to be exceedingly careful about what we say about human beings who are made in the image of God

Because if we praise God and then curse people made in his image, he doesn’t approve of that

James is touching on a well known understanding among Jewish people in his day

The ancient Rabbi’s taught this

“One should not say, ‘since I am scorned, I should scorn my fellow as well; since I have been cursed, I will curse my fellow as well’…if you act thus, realize who it is that you are willing to have humiliated - ‘the one who is made in the likeness of God”

Illustration: If you speak kindly to me but terribly about my daughter, don’t think you are my friend

And yet we speak horrible things about God’s children all the time.

We must speak kindly to people because they are made in God’s image.

Transition: James cannot fathom how the redeemed people of God can have this kind of disconnect lack of integrity in their speech. The reason? If their hearts have truly been transformed by the gospel, their speech should reflect that reality.

III. The heart must be transformed to tame the tongue

James 3:10–12 ESV

10 From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. 11 Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? 12 Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.

Right after declaring the reality that blessing and cursing come from the same mouth, James decries that truth: Such things should not be so!!

Why should that not be so? James gives three illustrations to explain:

Can a spring give both fresh and salt water? NO.

Can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine figs? NO.

Can a salt pond yield fresh water? NO.

The point?

Two things

Something of integrity cannot simultaneously give two contradictory things (a spring that gives both fresh and salt water)

Things only pour forth what they are (figs bear figs, grapevines bear grapes, salt ponds yield salt water)

All of these illustrations serve to help us understand where our words come from: The heart.

James is once again alluding to the teachings of Jesus: Matthew 12:33-37

Matthew 12:33–37 ESV

33 “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit. 34 You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. 35 The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. 36 I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, 37 for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

Jesus’ point is that bad trees make bad fruit, and likewise evil people bring forth evil things.

“Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”

James is giving further illustrations that make the same point

So a redeemed heart made pure by the blood of Jesus should not be capable of cursing another person in the image of God.

Why is James so concerned, then? Because the people he is writing to have a regular habit of speaking in unbelievably cruel ways about other people, and James knows that in the end, this kind of speech is symptomatic of a deadly heart condition

Application: Here’s where this gets so convicting for us

Do you know why it is that sometimes terrible things come out of your mouth that you later regret?

Cruel speech comes out of a heart where cruelty has a home.

Poisonous words come from a heart that is poisoned.

Every time you say something that hurts another person, that demeans them, that curses them, it is an indicator that to some degree your heart is still in the grip of sin, evil, and death.

The truth is that no one can ever tame the tongue because no one can actually heal the vast brokenness of the human heart

The heart must be transformed to tame the tongue, and that only happens through the cross.

Once again, we are confronted even in the midst of James’ incredible nuts and bolts practical teaching with the desperate condition of the human heart and the beautiful reality of the gospel

That we are completely unable to effect any lasting change in our own heart, because we cannot bring it to life

It is of no use to just try to “be better” - to use an illustration again that I used a few weeks ago, it does no good to tie up fruit to a dead tree

So what I’m really hoping for today is not simply “hey, watch your mouth, try to use better words!”

Instead, my hope is that as we come to Jesus in faith, trust him, sit under his teaching, submit ourselves every day to his reign and lordship, that he will be faithful to transform our hearts so that our desires and therefore our words and even actions change

My prayer is for God to effect such a transformation in us by a movement of the Holy Spirit that we truly will be a people whose natural tendency is to speak words of life, truth, kindness, conviction, and joy rather than curse, shame, humiliation, and scorn.

This is the difference between a worldview that just tries to accomplish external behavioral modification vs. the christian faith, where the only chance we have of getting our behavior under control, of taming the tongue, is the complete overhaul of the heart by the power of the gospel.

“only a renewed heart can produce pure speech; and consistently (though not perfectly) pure speech is to be the product of the renewed heart.”

So what do we do?

Turn to Jesus

He alone gives the healing of the heart necessary for the taming of the tongue

Any attempt of ours to just “be better” is doomed to failure, because we cannot tame our own tongue

But if we yield to Jesus and allow him to bring healing, wholeness, and restoration, we will find that his life pours out of us through our words

Let us be the redeemed people of God with renewed hearts that pour out speech of purity and life