This post by christinecoltman was originally published at GRACE PLACE
It’s so good to be with you all tonight as we tackle yet another challenging passage in James – James chapter 3 – and I’d like to start with a couple of questions.
Hands up if you have an accent.
Hands up if you know what my accent is?
When I first meet someone down here, after we’ve been chatting for a while, they will usually ask, so, where do you come from – what kind of accent is that? Is it Irish? (this is usually their first stab in the dark!).
Because when you take someone out of their hometown, they instantly have an ‘accent’, don’t they. Within seconds of speaking, your tongue gives away where you’re from.
After all, people can’t usually tell that I’m Scottish from my clothes, or my skin colour (although I do have freckles under my makeup!) – it’s my tongue that reveals where I’m from, because of how it’s been trained to speak, and it’s to our tongues that James wants to turn our attention to in Chapter 3. He wants us to have a good long think about what our tongues reveal about us.
So, just as a doctor gets you to stick out your tongue and then diagnoses an often seemingly unrelated problem from it, Doctor James is going to get us to stick out our tongues and diagnose a very real, very widespread problem within our hearts.
And while we’re speaking of doctors, I’m going to be honest and say that this tongue examination is not going to be comfortable. There are few sections of Scripture that are more cutting or dig deeper than James chapter 3, and yet few are more relevant to our everyday lives.
This has been by far the most challenging study I’ve ever had to prepare – and many times, I’ve simply not wanted to do it – because it’s forced me to take a long hard look at how I speak, and I’ll be honest, I didn’t like a lot of what I saw.
But as it says in 2 Timothy 3 v 16 and 17, ‘All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,so that the servant of Godmay be thoroughly equipped for every good work’, and I’ve had to remind myself that James’ aim here is a good one – he wants to give us a real awareness of our sin and show us our deep need of the grace and mercy of our great God.
So, let’s dive in and read verses 1-2 of chapter 3:
‘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.’
So, the first two verses sum up the theme of tonight’s chapter: Do you have control of your tongue?
Because if you do, says James, you can control your whole body, and you are a perfect person.
Any perfect women here tonight? Anyone able to control their tongue in all situations?
When you have a burning piece of juicy ‘information’ that you just ‘need’ to tell someone; when you’ve been slighted and you have a ‘right’ to bite back; or when you are ‘absolutely justified’ in saying ‘I told you so!’ to your friend or family member.
I don’t know about you but there are countless situations each day when I feel I have absolutely no control of my runaway tongue.
I heard Chuck Swindoll say: ‘Your tongue is in a wet place because it slips easily. No wonder God put it in a cage of teeth locked in your mouth. If the muzzle fits, wear it.’ Too harsh? Probably not, for me.
Therefore, James begins, take your words seriously. For example, don’t rush into teaching the Bible without realising how strict the responsibilities are. If your speech is not consistent with your faith, don’t teach, because teachers are expected to live what they teach and will receive a strict judgement if they don’t.
Even James (who I always picture as the pitch-perfect Christian), says here that with his tongue he stumbles in many ways.
I love his little personal reflection in verse 2: ‘We all stumble’. I wondered, was he thinking perhaps of the first thirty years of his life as he watched Jesus growing up and refused to accept who his brother was? As he watched Jesus grow from holiness to holiness, did he make snide comments or speak jealous words?
Whatever he is thinking of, James is saying, ‘Look, I get it, I’m with you – controlling our tongues is hard – but we still need to take it seriously’. So how do we get control of our tongues?
Because verse two makes a startling claim: if you get control of your tongue, you can control your whole body. If you can master your tongue, says James, you can master all your sinful tendencies. After all, it is possible to sin anywhere with our tongues, right? We can whisper, text, email from anywhere, at any time, whereas our bodily sins are usually more restricted.
James is saying if you can control your tongue, you can control your body. Whatever spiritual disciplines work on your tongue will work on the rest of you – and this is big news! If we want to bring our whole spiritual life under control then we need to begin with our tongues.
So, how difficult will this be? How can we learn to speak in a new way? Let’s read further into the chapter.
v3-5
‘When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. 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. 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.’
James now launches into a simple but thorough analysis of the tongue, choosing three vivid images. The first two show us the disproportionate power of the tongue, and the third shows us the immense danger of the tongue.
So, let’s look at the first two examples in verses 3 and 4 which show us that the tongue is small, but powerful.
Consider the horse, says James. It is a large, muscular animal, but it can be completely controlled by a small piece of metal in its mouth. Likewise, a ship – thousands upon thousands of tonnes of metal – is controlled by a comparatively small implement at its stern. There is a disproportionate impact between the size of the controlling implement and the largeness of creature or vessel it controls. This is the same with our tongues and bodies.
James has already told us that the person who can control his tongue can control their whole body and he is proving this point here. We can’t ride a horse unless it is under control, using the bit and the bridle. Without that bit the horse is useless; it won’t work for us. Similarly, we can only control our bodies if our tongue is under control.
And again, a rudder is a comparatively tiny mechanism used by the captain of a ship to direct the course of the huge vessel and bring it safely to its destination. And the tongue is this to our lives – a tiny muscle hidden away within us – but power applied by your tongue can control your whole future. An angry word; a poisonous whisper; a spiteful lie told just at a crucial moment in your life can change the entire course of your life.
Control your tongue, warns James, because of its power to control you.
Last time I spoke, I read out this quote from Sam Allberry: ‘One of the marks of authentic Christian behaviour is control of our speech’. I had it stuck up in my kitchen then, and I still do now to remind me to ask daily, do I control my speech as a Christian? What are the consequences when I do not?
One consequence, says James in verse 5, is that we can start a wildfire.
Our tongues, like fire, are necessary – after all, we need fire to stay warm, to heat our homes. It’s a good thing on a cold day. (And we’ve had a lot of them this winter!). But when fire gets out of control it can destroy homes and lives.
Think of how fast a wildfire spreads – a cigarette butt casually, but irresponsibly dropped can set forests and communities on fire in such a short space of time. And how quickly can we burn down a friendship; a marriage, with just a few fiery words.
I’ve heard it often said that arguing is good for a marriage – it’s ‘healthy’, and the resolution allows couples to grow closer. My husband Nath and I both come from broken homes and one thing we promised before we got married was that we would never raise our voices to one another, because we both know the long-term damage that this can cause. Angry, bitter words are like red hot brands that scar you for life, and James is reminding us of this here.
Proverbs 16 v 27 says that when a person plans evil, it is on their lips ‘like a scorching fire.’ And that scorching fire, says James, can spread, setting everything it touches alight.
Sounding bleak so far? Don’t worry, it’s about to get worse before it gets better!
So, James has told us that our tongues are prone to evil unlike any other part of our body. They have disproportionate power over our lives, and they spread evil faster than we can control it. Why is this? Let’s read verses 6-8:
“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. 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.”
Woah. I mean, I don’t know how you react to that but to me it seems like one of the most strongly worded passages in the Bible. And all over a tiny part of our body?! Is James overreacting?
Because make no mistake – he’s saying that our words are so destructive because they are in fact, hellish. This was shocking to me when I thought about it fully. Are our words really that bad?
I thought about my kids at this point in the passage, well particularly my son, because he’s at a ‘testing the boundaries’ stage. I thought about some of the things he’s said to me recently. ‘I HATE you. You’re so EVIL to me! You’re NOT my mother!’ His words seem so black and white and childish, but are my words really any better? My speech is cleverer and more subtle, sure, but often just as evil. I speak his same basic thoughts coated in more cunning language.
Because we’ve had deceit in our mouths from Day One, haven’t we? Think all the way back to the Garden of Eden when the lies began and Eve twisted what had happened in her reply to God. Our tongue is the victim of our fallenness, and it sins again and again.
So, is James overreacting?
Let’s think about it. The tongue can breach every one of the Ten Commandments without us moving an inch. You can destroy someone with words more easily than a sword. Every sort of evil in the world finds an ally in an uncontrolled tongue. Think of any kind of evil disposition and think about how the tongue is able to encourage that evil by reporting it, reinforcing it, spreading it.
Are we beginning to grasp the extent of the problem?
Because even our translations don’t quite cover what James is saying here – verse 6 says the tongue is a ‘world’ of evil but actually ‘cosmos’ is correct translation – the word ‘world’ is simply not big enough. James is saying open your eyes! The tongue is an entire universe that can stain and ruin everything in God’s good world, burning like a fire that can never be put out.
And who is the puppeteer behind this madness and mayhem?
Well, says James, it’s Satan. The ‘father of all lies’, as God calls him in John 8 v 44. When James says in verse 8 that our tongues are ‘a restless evil and a deadly poison’ he is referring to the poisonous tongue of the restless serpent himself.
‘Where have you come from?’, God asks Satan in Job Chapter 1, and Satan replies, ‘from roaming’, or ‘being restless upon’ the earth. Satan is constantly looking to spoil and corrupt, and in our tongues he finds the perfect ally. James is making it plain that whether we like it or not, our tongues can be a tool of Satan that can pollute our whole person and corrupt our entire circle of life.
Putting it bluntly, James says: when we allow our tongues to be set on fire by hell, they will lead us right back to hell. They are that dangerous.
But we all attempt to tame our tongues, don’t we? Often, I wake up and think, ‘I am not going to gossip today’, or ‘I won’t lose my temper with the kids after school when they chuck their stuff everywhere and demand a bazillion snacks all at once.’
After all, as James says in verse seven – we’ve tamed everything else on this earth, right? Birds of prey, cats, dogs, dolphins, elephants – massive creatures! God made us to tame and subdue the creatures of the earth and we’re usually very good at it – but then James delivers the most crushing blow of all (well, it was to me) – no human being can tame the tongue (v 8). Not Anne, not Kathy – not even Rob Durant. Our tongue problem is humanly unfixable. This is terrible news – isn’t it?!
Well, actually, it’s the best news so far because we are about to reach the ‘good news’ part of tonight’s talk. Phew!
Because, if you’re like me, everything so far has been horrifying. Necessary to hear, yes, but shocking, and if it were not for what comes next, we may as well go and put that muzzle on right now.
Sam Allberry says, “The reason the tongue is beyond our control is because of what it is: the outflow of our hearts. And because this is so, this is a very humbling passage. James has wisdom and help for us in the verses that follow, but we will make no progress unless we first recognise the extent of the problem we have with our tongues.”
So, do we honestly acknowledge before God the severity of the sin we commit with our tongues, and the power our words have?
Let’s move on to verses 9-12.
“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 and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.”
You might think that this talk has been pretty bleak so far, and I’m sorry. But I wanted to pause, because these verses, though they come with more warning, also remind us that our tongues have a great capacity to praise and bless.
I have these two notes pinned up beside my bed. They were both written to me by friends, who are here tonight on zoom – sent at a time when they were much needed. They are hugely positive messages – one of thanks and one of affirmation. These words make me feel so blessed that I keep them beside me always because I don’t want to forget them. Using words to bless others is such a powerful thing. Think of a time when someone built you up and encouraged you with words. You never forget those words.
King Solomon in Proverbs 25 v 11 said that ‘A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.’ Our words can be beautiful, and this is because we are created in the image of a speaking God who gave us tongues to bless one another, and praise Him.
This reminds me of the very start of the book of James in chapter 1 v 18 when he says: ‘God brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.’
The reason God made us was so that we could be the very best of his creation, made through the word of truth, which is Jesus, and therefore as children of God, we should share that family resemblance. Our words should be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. We are made through Jesus, to shine Jesus, and we should walk, and talk, in the way He does.
And sometimes, as in the case of my friends, we do! We use our words to bless, and build one another up.
But we are often inconsistent with our words, aren’t we? And this is really what James is getting at in these verses. On a Sunday, we praise God, and on a Monday, we run down that other person on the school run, or in the office. When we insult or slander someone, we are actually insulting and slandering God, says James – because everyone on earth is made in God’s likeness.
Sinclair Ferguson put it bluntly: ‘How dare I destroy with a word a brother or sister for whom Christ has died!’
The sad truth is that our tongues, the very means that God has provided us with to praise and honour him, and have fellowship with one another, become the means of despising and deceiving others, and dishonouring God.
‘This is not right!’ says James, in verse 10. Can you almost hear him shouting at this point?
Even according to the laws of nature this shouldn’t be, he says, which is why he gives us three more nature illustrations in v 11-12.
Can a spring produce two types of water, can a fruit tree produce the wrong fruit, or can a salt pond produce fresh water?
The answers are all no, of course; they are all impossible. So, let nature teach you what is obvious, says James. Bad things don’t produce good things. And so, a person who is not right with God, and who is not actively spending time with God cannot consistently speak pure and helpful words. They can’t speak with a heavenly accent because that is not where their source is.
James is perhaps remembering what Jesus said in Matthew 12 v 34-6:
34 The mouth speaks what the heart is full of. 35 A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. 36 But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken. 37 For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.”
More challenging words for us.
Like James, Jesus is saying that like produces like. Our tongue is not a friend or a foe, merely a messenger that delivers what is in our heart. Jesus also says in Matthew 15 v 11 ‘It is not what goes into someone’s mouth that defiles them, but what comes out of their mouths.’ Our tongue is like a bucket that splashes down into our heart and then brings up what is there already. Because, as James has just said: a product is always consistent with its source.
And our source is Jesus, right, the Word of Truth? I know that’s who I want my source to be. So, what would happen if we allow him to change the way we speak?
Let’s read v 13-16:
‘Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbour bitter envy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such ‘wisdom’ does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practise.’
These verses at first might seem a step away from what we’ve been learning about our tongues. But let’s think back to the start of the chapter when James said that our tongues are an outpouring of our hearts and that they control our actions.
One of James’ main focuses in his book is that our faith and lives should be consistent. Therefore, he says, if our hearts are fixed on Jesus, our words will be righteous and our deeds will give evidence of our faith.
So here, James makes a dramatic call. Who is wise and understanding among you, he asks in verse 13. Let them stand up that we may see them? Is there anyone here – anyone truly wise and understanding? Let’s check the requirements…
The marks of this person, says James, are good works, meekness, being without jealousy or selfish ambition. Someone who is peaceful, gentle, open to reason and full of mercy. Once again, I think that if we were honest, there would only be one person left standing at the end of this list: Jesus.
In John 7 v 46 the Roman officers said of Jesus, ‘No man ever spoke like this man!’ Jesus’s accent was so pure and so utterly undefiled that it was out of this world – it was heavenly. 1 Peter 2 v 22 says, ‘He committed no sin and no deceit was found in his mouth.’
But we could never speak like this, though, right? It’s a hallmark of spiritual maturity that nobody but Jesus ever had. So, does this mean that we are to be left to the mercy of our tongues?
Absolutely not! The Bible tells us that we are a new creation in Christ. Titus 2 v 11-12 says – ‘For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives.’
God promises in the Bible that he will help us battle the sin in our lives, and in our tongues, but it’s up to us to grasp it and work it out. If the tongue is the master switch in our body to a whole world of sin, we need to shut it down. We need to get control of it, in God’s strength, before it gets hold of us.
When I feel like things are getting out of control in my life (which can be often), I often picture myself putting my hand in God’s. My tiny hand in his huge one. Because he has the power to change us – but we need to be walking beside him, allowing him to do this work, in order for this to happen. When we make him our source, he will transform us, as he has promised to do, and he will give us a new heart, a new tongue, and a new accent.
The New Testament gives us a very clear picture of these new tongues, because the first act in God’s new creation, the church, in Acts 2, was to give his people new tongues that spoke only the glorious words of God. The apostles were given not only new languages to speak in, but the ability to speak in a heavenly accent and Paul describes this new form of speech in Colossians 3 v 16 as ‘teaching and admonishing each other with all wisdom through psalms, hymns and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.’
When we fill our hearts with Jesus, as Jesus said, ‘the mouth will speak what the heart is full of.’ Yes, the tongue is beyond our control, but what is impossible for us is gloriously possible for our God. Our tongues need to be set alight, not from fires below in hell but from above by God himself – and the good news is that he promises he will do this when we commit ourselves to him.
So, let’s read the final two verses of our passage:
‘But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.’
Once again James is back on his favourite topic… wisdom.
Every wrong form of speech is a sign that there is a lack of wisdom in our lives, says James. True wisdom comes from outside this world and we can’t gain true wisdom without turning to God for it.
So, if the source of this wisdom is God, we need to be those who pray to get God’s perspective on our lives. And fortunately, in chapter one verse 5 (my favourite verse in James), he says that God will give this wisdom generously to all, without finding fault. It doesn’t matter how much evil we have spoken, or how we have misused our tongues. If we humbly come to God and ask his help, he will lavishly pour out this wisdom upon us, that will allow us to speak righteously.
It’s why humility and wisdom go together in this passage: to truly know yourself is to know yourself as someone in desperate need of God’s grace. Before the mirror of God’s word, we realise how much each of us need a Saviour. Yes, Jesus is our example in how we should speak, but first, and most importantly of all, he is our Saviour. And when we claim him as that, the transformation of our lives, and tongues, can begin.
James closes by telling us that when we live this good life, a godly life, the effects are seen in our relationships. He says that living and speaking God’s way has such knock-on effects that it produces ‘a harvest of righteousness’. God gives us, his firstfruits, such an attractive life (and tongue!) that others are drawn to God through a behaviour so compelling that it can be the clincher for some who are coming to trust in the gospel for the first time.
This why I love the last verse in our chapter so much: ‘a harvest of righteousness is sown by those who make peace’. It links so beautifully to what Jesus said in his beatitudes in Matthew 5 v 9: ‘Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called children of God’. When we follow Jesus – when we love him, and bask in his presence – we actually share in his family resemblance, including his heavenly accent.
Because faith for James, is a faith that is seen, and he’s saying in verse 18 that it is by means of this spiritual harvest that we prove that God is at work in us. It is because we are not marked by envy and evil ambition, jealous and hateful talk that we can raise a harvest for him. That’s how we know where our source is. As James said, the fruit gives evidence of what the tree is, and it is as we welcome God into our lives more and more that we can grow these beautiful fruits for him.
So, to close….
I have a friend who mimics accents. It used to really annoy me until I realised, she doesn’t do it on purpose, her tongue just ‘does it’. She’s from Glasgow, but she spends an hour with someone from Ireland, or Australia and her accent shifts. She can’t help it; she is so genuinely affected by who she is with that she starts to take on part of who they are.
And we learn accents by who we spend time with, don’t we? After all, we’re not born with an accent – we learn it from our parents, or those who we spend the most time with.
Would people recognise our accents as those who spend time with Jesus? Do we spend enough heartfelt time sitting under his voice, His Word, to pick up his accent?
Last year we looked at how Jesus is our Good Shepherd and that his sheep know his voice. Do we know it so well that we sound like him?
When Peter was in the courtyard, his accent gave him away. ‘Surely you are one of them,’ said the servant girl in Matthew 26. She meant that Peter had a Galilean accent, as Jesus’s followers did, but would someone say that of us? Would they say, ‘They must be from Corsham Baptist Church, they sound like Christians’, when we’re chatting with friends, or blabbing away in the Costa queue? Does the way we talk give us away?
Because, it should, and I’m sure that’s as much a challenge to you as it is to me.
Because as Christians, we’re not in our home country – we should have a recognisable accent – and through Jesus we need to become fluent in our native tongue.
God promises that one day we will have a glorified tongue that does nothing but praise God and speak righteousness, but right now it’s a day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment battle of the heart.
We don’t have to fight it alone though – God promises us his strength and power to change – and it’s also our collective responsibility as Christians.
Will you join me and hold each other accountable?
Because what would it look like if we were a church that did this? That learned to bridle our tongues and no longer let the devil have free reign. Our heavenly accent would ring out loud and clear, united, distinctive and so very attractive.
I just want to pray for us all and then finish with a promise of hope for us from Jude v24 and 25.
Let’s pray.
Dear Father God, thank you for giving us tongues to praise you and to bless others. Forgive us when we misuse them so greatly. Help us not to misinterpret your patience with our sin as acceptance and please continue to work in us hearts of wisdom that are undivided for you, just as yours is for us.
If we have been convicted by our sin tonight, help us to rejoice that you will change us and bring us to maturity in you.
Lord Jesus, fix our hearts on you so that our tongues will declare your praise. Be our source to drink from so that our words may always be pure and that we may grow to sound more and more like you.
‘Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy—to the only God our Saviour be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.’
Discussion questions in small groups:
- When you speak, do you sound like a citizen of heaven, or of earth?
- James is an amazingly practical book and there is lots of practical advice in it to help us speak like Jesus. Check out James’s ‘how-to’s’ on the print out. If we fix these resolutions in our hearts, how would they change the way we speak?
- What from tonight’s passage encourages you to speak like Jesus?