James 3:1-12--Taming the Tongue

​James 3:1-12 English Standard Version (ESV)
Taming the Tongue
1 Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. 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.

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Here's a passage that speaks directly to me (though it's also meant for all of you too).  God will hold teachers (specifically religious teachers) to greater strictness because they are responsible for correctly conveying who He is, what He has said and what He requires.  Those who are teachers are seen as knowing the most about God and Christianity and therefore are looked to many times as role models of how others should act.  If a teacher falls it can be scandalous and ruin their entire ministry and congregation (if they are a pastor of a local church).  James then points out that the easiest way for any of us to stumble is with our to words we say.

James gives a few examples that we can connect to on how such a small part of the body can be so important.  Like a bit and bridle in the mouth of a horse that can help tame such a strong animal and make it go where you want it to go, or like a ship's rudder that is small in comparison to the entire ship, but is used to steer the ship, or a small spark that can set the entire forest on fire--and then James says that the tongue is a fiery weapon of hell itself used to destroy both the ones we speak against and ourselves as we are stained by the sin of the words we speak.

No matter how close we get to God we will always struggle with our words.  James says that if any man can learn to control his tongue that man must be perfect in all his ways (that man was Jesus by the way).  We know that our mouths which sing praise to God on Sunday spew venom and poison throughout the week and this makes as much as sense as saying you can go to the same spring or well to draw both fresh water and salt water.  So then how can both praise and vile words flow from the same heart because out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth overflows.  We are reminded that the fruit we bear is determined by the root of what is in our heart and it should be impossible for Christians to behave in the way we described earlier.  They should not be able to produce both good fruit and bad fruit.  You should be able to go up to a tree and have it sometimes produce figs and other times produce apples. That again is as silly as saying that sometimes you are a Christian and sometimes you are not.  Let us live lives where our orthopraxy is in line with our orthodoxy, especially if we are teachers who others look to for examples on both orthodoxy and orhtopraxy.