We are living in an age of tremendous communication which is both a blessing and a curse. We have information available to us at the tip of our fingers, but we also are bombarded with such an overwhelming degree of information that it actually creates deep levels of anxiety. It seems everyone is beckoning for our attention. Everyone wants to tell us something. James 3 is a tremendous passage addressing this barrage of words flooding our souls. Words are powerful. In the wisdom literature of the bible, we find the significance and impact of words upon us. “The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit (Proverbs 18:21).
I spent two years researching and writing on ‘Communication from the book of Proverbs.’ I discovered that out of the 886 verses found in the book of Proverbs, there were an estimated 245 verses that addressed the issue of speech, speaking or listening, which makes up over 27% of the book. The sheer numbers of verses on communication spoke to me of the importance of the issue. Let’s face it, one of the biggest obstacles or barrier to having healthy relationships with each other is how we communicate with one another. As children we are often afflicted with a self-image shaped by what was communicated by parents, teachers, and peers into our lives. If it was positive that was a great blessing, but unfortunately, there are so many that have been shattered and shaped by hurtful and painful words. The longing in each heart is that we are loved and this comes from a sense that someone is taking the time to understand us. People desire to be heard.
James can certainly be identified within this wisdom genre from the OT; we find the encouragement to restrain our speech. James 1:19 reflects that sentiment. “My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.” Warren Wiersbe relates that in the previous chapters regarding the nature of spiritual maturity, chapter 1 reveals the mature believer as ‘patient in trouble.’ In chapter 2, the mature believer practices the truth. Now in chapter three we come to a third characteristic of a mature believer which is the ability to maintain self-control over our words.
We can see from the introduction of the chapter that people desire to express their point of view. James, however, cautions us. What we say we are accountable before God. Often our words are the cause of conflict. What’s new. People today are still talking, confronting, criticizing, boasting, self-justifying, and giving unsolicited advice. We also know that words can also be used to bring encouragement, care, inspiration, and lasting influence for good. So, how can we overcome the greatest challenge or barrier in our relationships with one another? James explores the issue of learning how to restrain our lives in order to succeed in our communication with others, which is a powerful key to healthy relationships. Alec Motyer challenges us with how to overcome the things in our lives that continuously trip us up.
The tongue is the key-factor in controlled living. We ask ourselves how we are to control the powerful forces within us that drive us into sin, and James replies by talking about something we never considered—do we control our tongues?[i]
So, let’s examine what James is saying about the impact that our words have. There are three things we need to understand about our communication that will help us begin to address this significant area in our lives.
THE FIRST THINGS WE NEED TO UNDERSTAND IS THE POWER OF OUR WORDS.
Looking into some studies, how much we speak it varies from age groups to temperaments but on the whole it is somewhere between 16,000 to 22,000 words a day. A significant difference between word usage between men and women only occurred in middle adulthood, during child rearing age, where women spoke about 3000 more words than men. Again, it all depended upon the individuals. New research is now showing that people are beginning to talk less, but that may be due to our digital means of communication. The point is that there is no shortage of words being expressed.
A. James begins this chapter with a warning regarding our words.
The challenge begins with those whose vocation is primarily speaking, namely teachers (including preachers). Those who teach others will be held to a greater degree of accountability before God. Are our words and lifestyle congruent? Do we live out what we ask of others?
Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. We all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check.[ii]
We know from O. T. biblical wisdom that those who use many words are more likely to sin.
When words are many, sin is not absent, but he who holds his tongue is wise. [iii]
The more we talk, generally the greater the probability that we will say something to offend, wound, or simply violate God’s standard, and sin against God and others.
B. Teachers must have a even-tempered disposition.
The one who has knowledge uses words with restraint, and whoever has understanding is even-tempered.[iv]
Dan McCartney points out the relationship between teachers and words:
The key connection is that since teachers use the tongue, they are engaged in a dangerous enterprise, and only the mature person of humility, purity, gentleness, and sincerity (3:17) should engage in it.[v]
C. The danger of teaching what is false or heresy.
Another danger that teachers face in this regard is that a teacher can be found guilty of teaching ‘error, which would not only destroy the teacher, but also their hearers. Paul warned Timothy of this very thing in his letter to him.
Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.[vi]
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.[vii]
One example of someone who was instrumental in giving biblical wisdom was Solomon, who many believe was the primary author of the book of Proverbs, yet, it would seem at the end of his life, he became an idolater (cf. 1 Kings 11:1-11).
D. Teachers also face the danger of abusing their role.
Luke Timothy Johnson adds some other dangers that befall teachers.
Teachers particularly are vulnerable to failures in speech, not only because their profession demands of them that they speak more than others, and they must do so in public and before a frequently captive audience, but because such a setting provides temptations to virtually every form of evil speech: arrogance and domination over students; anger and pettiness at contradiction or inattention; slander and meanness toward absent opponents; flattery of students for the sake of vainglory.[viii]
I would add that this is also true of preachers who are tempted to say what people want to hear, rather than what God wants to communicate to people and what God’s word is actually saying in order to gain followers. Those who are called by God must simply be faithful messengers of God’s message.
Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.[ix]
E. The power of words directs and controls.
When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal.[x]
The bit is a small element, but it directs and controls a powerful horse.
Even so, our words can have a profound impact on others.
James continues with another example of the power of rudder over a ship and its effects in a storm. It is the rudder that allows the pilot to guide the ship through the storm, without it the ship would easily be lost. Dan McCartney explains the danger of a rudder malfunctioning.
If the rudder is uncontrolled in the presence of a strong wind, the ship can run aground or spin across the wind and capsize. Even if the ship is controlled, a misguided rudder can send it to the wrong place.[xi]
Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go.[xii]
The tongue, which is a synecdoche, is a figure of speech in which one word represents another. The tongue here represents the words that we speak. Like the bit and the rudder our speech is directing our lives. The bible reveals to us that what comes out of our mouths is what is within our hearts.
But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them.[xiii]
THE SECOND THING WE NEED TO UNDERSTAND IS THE DAMAGE OUR WORDS CAN CAUSE.
James now moves us to the damaging effects that our words can have on others. Like a small spark, it can allow an entire forest to be destroyed, so words can create great destruction.
- James explains the origins of an evil tongue.
Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.[xiv]
What is James saying here? Our words are like an uncontrolled fire that destroys indiscriminately and shapes a person’s future in a negative way. Think of how many wars started with rhetoric and then degenerated into anger, hatred, and ultimately killing one’s opponents.
Dan McCartney brings the application back to the church to whom the message is being sent.
James’s point would be that undisciplined and forward tongues of would-be teachers can both despoil the whole church and further set fires that fun amok and keep reigniting; no sooner is one put out than three more emerge from the ashes elsewhere. Such is the destructive power of ugly rumor, jealous backbiting, and other forms of verbal warfare.[xv]
However, on the positive side, our words can bless, comfort, and enrich others; we now see the damage that words can bring. James points out that as humans we have been able to tame animals, human nature cannot be tamed. It needs a power greater than self to experience transformation.
All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.[xvi]
What hope do we have to control our mouths? Only God can bring about a transformation in our nature, when we surrender to Him and experience His wise and loving nature filling our hearts.
I’m reminded of two incidents in Scripture that assures us that our tongues need a work of God’s redeeming and renewing grace. Early in human history we read of the tower of Babel, where sinful human ambition in direct contradiction to God’s mandate to ‘be fruitful and multiply’ decided to make a name for themselves and build a tower in defiance of God’s will and God confused their communication.
In contrast we find a powerful reversal of that incident on the day of Pentecost where God’s Spirit was poured out upon the disciples and they began to utter in languages that were known to the hearers, ‘the wonderful works of God,’ and the result was so many coming to faith in Christ and experiencing eternal life.
What is interesting on the day of Pentecost was that when God’s Spirit was given to the early disciples in the upper room it came in the form of tongues of fire. God needs to cleanse our mouths. That is exactly the experience that Isaiah the prophet had when he encountered God in all of God’s glory. His immediate reaction was to say, Woe is me, I am a man of unclean lips living among people of unclean lips (Isaiah 6:5).
Jesus had promised the early disciples that they would be witnesses to the world once the Holy Spirit empowered them. It is this promise of God’s empowering Spirit in our lives that our tongues or mouth can be tamed.
THE FINAL THING WE NEED TO UNDERSTAND IS THE IMPORTANCE OF THE CONSISTENCY OF OUR WORDS.
One great issue in our lives is that we use our mouths for good and not for evil. James has already warned in the first chapter regarding being doubleminded and unstable. This is often expressed in our speech.
With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring?[xvii]
James is not suggesting that we don’t bless God, rather we should stop cursing others, or speaking evil of others. It is inconsistent as a believer or follower of Jesus. I remember being told as a child, if you cannot say anything good about another, do not say anything at all. That sentiment obviously is a practical expression of this text.
- Illustration of two types of water.
The problem with this behavior is that it diminishes us. We are tainted by this sin. It means that our lives have lost their intrinsic value to influence and benefit those around us. It is incongruent and sinful. Yet today there is a continue stream of denigrating comments and criticisms of others. May God forgive us. We need to challenge and confront issues, not character assassinations.
Suppose two separate sources of water flowed together into the same outlet, one sweet water, the other brackish and unpalatable, we would never know of the double source because the bitter flavor would prevail. That is what would prove to be the stronger element; that is what would leave its mark. So the tongue needs guarding lest it leave a bitter taste behind it wherever it makes itself felt.[xviii]
If we truly love God then it must be expressed in our love for people. People who are made in God’s image. We may hate sin, but certainly not people.
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.[xix]
- Illustration of different vegetation and their fundamental characteristic.
My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.[xx]
God has organized plants to produce after their own kind, so that we know the plant by its characteristics and the fruit that it produces. What is coming out of our mouths is really what is within us? The only way to change what is coming out of our mouths is to change the very nature of our heart condition. Is it any wonder that in the book of Proverbs there is a call for us to give our hearts to God.
Above all else, guard your heart, for everything flows from it. Keep your mouth free of perversity; keep corrupt talk far from your lips.[xxi]
God calls us to give our hearts to him.
My son, give me your heart and let your eyes delight in my ways. [xxii]
Only God can tame our tongues, because only God can cleanse our hearts.
Let me give us some practical approaches to bringing out mouths under control.
- Confess our sins and allow God to cleanse and purify us from our defiling words.
- Meditate on God’s word. (Joshua 1, Psalm 1, Phil. 4:8).
- Praise God rather than grumble and complain.
Think before we speak. “Those who guard their lips preserve their lives, but those who speak rashly will come to ruin (Proverbs 13:3).”
Pray for God to help us guard what we say. “Set a guard over my mouth, LORD; keep watch over the door of my lips (Psalm 141:3).”
And now let us pray as the Psalmist prayed in Psalm 19:14: “May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.”
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[i] Alex Motyer, The Message of James, The Bible Speaks Today, (Downers Grove, Il: Inter-Varsity Press, 1985), 120.
[ii] James 3:1-2, The New International Version of the Bible, Zondervan, 2011.
[iii] Proverbs 10:19, The New International Version of the Bible, Zondervan, 1984.
[iv] Proverbs 17:27.
[v] Dan McCartney, James, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009), 178.
[vi] 1 Timothy 4:16.
[vii] 1 Corinthians 9:24-27.
[viii] Timothy Luke Johnson, The Letter of James, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 263.
[ix] 2 Timothy 4:2-4.
[x] James 3:3.
[xi] Dan McCartney, James, 183
[xii] James 3:4.
[xiii] Matthew 15:18.
[xiv] James 3:5-6.
[xv] Dan McCartney, James, 190.
[xvi] James 3:7-8.
[xvii] James 3:9-11.
[xviii] Alex Motyer, The Message of James, 127.
[xix] 1 John 4:7-8.
[xx] James 3:12.
[xxi] Proverbs 4:23-24.
[xxii] Proverbs 23:26.
