Observation/Interpretation:
Next, I will do an observation and interpretation of each verse, as well as the surrounding context. I am not getting into practical application for modern times very much, since that is not taught in the first semester of the IBS courses. Sometimes I ask rhetorical questions that I don't fully answer. IBS is a work in progress. You can always go back and explore more later.
Context from James 2. In the previous chapter, James addressed favoritism, as well as the vital connection between faith and deeds. This current passage continues the warning tone.
1. “Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.” All people will be held accountable for their words, but those who are in a position of authority or influence will face higher expectations. Therefore, those who aspire to this position need to evaluate whether or not they are ready for that sober responsibility. They must not be sloppy, flippant, profane, pretentious, misleading, self-serving, or manipulative. Who will judge them more strictly? God and other people. All believers have the need to discern the truth of the message and how it is presented.
2. “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.” This is realistic. Christians still sin in word and deed. But there are differences among Christians in maturity and self-discipline. Those who are able to control their speech, which is so difficult, are also likely to do well in other areas of their lives because of their spiritual strength displayed through self-control.
3. “When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal.” This is the first analogy. Back then, horses weren’t used primarily for recreation, but for basic transportation and agricultural work. James was making an object lesson out of a common scene in their daily lives in order to explain a spiritual truth. Horses are big and powerful, yet the small bit causes enough discomfort in the mouth to make the horse comply with its direction. But what controls the bit? It doesn’t have a mind of its own! The bit is a tool. So is the tongue. If an intelligent force controls the inanimate bit, doesn’t it follow that an intelligent force can learn to skillfully control the tool of the tongue?
4. “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.” This is the second analogy, again a common one in Bible times as a means of transportation for people and cargo. Like the bit & horse analogy, the rudder & ship one is about steering and direction. The rudder is a small part of the boat, and it is also unseen. The shiphand on deck pulls a lever or turns a wheel, and rotates the shaft which extends down to the rudder below the water. As with the bit, the rudder does not move itself. It is a tool controlled by an intelligent force. So likewise the tongue does not have ultimate control. It is controlled by the person whose mouth it is in.
5a. “Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts.” This is the form of the analogy: bit::horse, rudder::ship, tongue::body. The first item in each pair is a small tool with a mighty impact on the direction that the second item takes. The tongue doesn’t just have an impact. It apparently boasts about it, too.
5b-6. “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.” This analogy of the spark and fire takes on a different form than the bit and rudder ones. This is about a seemingly small force spreading rapidly and causing great damage. Featuring the words evil, corrupts, and hell, this is a pessimistic warning about the tongue. It employs hyperbole, an extreme form of exaggeration. However, throughout Scripture there are plenty of positive teachings about speech, so this should be interpreted in light of those. This passage seems to be saying the taming the tongue is a difficult challenge, and if a person doesn’t deal with it seriously, the results can be utterly destructive. James seems to be mixing a metaphor in this passage. The tongue is a physical organ but it in itself is not the controlling and evil force. Rather, it is a visible picture of the larger communication process which has moral ramifications for good or evil.
7-8a. “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.” The statement that animals can be tamed but the tongue cannot is ironic. Why is it sometimes easier to control things which are external than something within? This may be related to protecting ego and a sense of core identity. When James says, “no human being can tame the tongue” it appears that he is using hyperbole again, and that he is not saying they should give up trying since it is impossible. It’s clear that James wants people to speak in a godly way rather than an evil one. He seems to be saying that humans cannot completely subdue the tongue all of the time. This may also be related to Jesus’ words in Luke 18:27: “What is impossible with man is possible with God.” In other words, mere human effort is ultimately no match for evil, but with divine transforming power working in their hearts, Christians can make positive progress toward God-glorifying communication.
8b. “It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.” The image here could be of a writhing viper with a flickering tongue poised to sink its toxic fangs into an unfortunate victim. Like the spark setting fire to the forest, the poison spreads quickly through the body causing great destruction and even death.
9. “With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness.” Here is another irony, or something that would not be expected. If a person praises God, they should also be speaking to others in a godly way. However, their supposed reverence for God unfortunately does not translate into a respect for the crown of his creation: other human beings. The command of Jesus was dual: Love God and love your neighbor. What does it mean to “curse” human beings? What forms can this take? It would be interesting to look up the original Biblical meaning of this.
10. “Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be.” James is realistically assessing the situation, but then insisting it shouldn’t ethically be that way. He is implying a need for repentance and change. He is not whining but exhorting.
11-12 “Can both fresh water 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.” This is a second kind of impossibility that James brings up in the passage. The first was that it is (hyperbolically) impossible to completely tame the tongue. Here it is supposedly impossible for two totally different results to come from the same source, whether it is kinds of water or kinds of fruit. One implication may be that tucked away in each human heart there is a hidden corrupted source which at times opens up and pollutes what is coming from the pure source. The solution then would be to find that corrupted source and purify it or remove it.
Context of James 3:14-18: The passage which follows this one takes a more positive turn toward true wisdom. It provides a contrast to Jame's diatribe about the tongue. It provides the way up toward maturity.
Word Study
In a typical IBS study, I might do a Word Study on several words. This time, I am only doing one on the word curse, since I was curious about it. I use the Blue Letter Bible web site to find the Strong's Concordance entry.
Curse:
Strong's Concordance entry G2672
Greek word: kataraomai' καταράομαι
Pronunciation: kä-tä-rä'-o-mī
Definition: to curse, doom, imprecate evil upon, execrate
You can see other uses of this Greek word in the New Testament if you click here and scroll down to Concordance Results.
Commentaries
In IBS studies, commentaries are consulted only after doing your own work on the passage. You have to think and explore for yourself first, without being unnecessarily swayed by someone else's viewpoint. Commentaries are used to confirm, correct, and raise more questions.
The two main commentaries I used during IBS courses where R.T. France's commentary on Matthew, which isn't going to help me much here in James, and Dr. Craig Keener's Bible Background Commentary on the New Testament. I used other on-line academic commentaries to supplement these. Right now, for the sake of brevity, I am going to just use a few sentences from pages 696-697 of Dr. Keener's book, followed by a short note from me in the parentheses.
"Some who wanted to be teachers of wisdom were teaching the sort of 'wisdom' espoused by the Jewish revolutionaries, which led to violence." (I hadn't thought of this at all.)
"Jewish texts often cast wisdom, reason, and God in the role of ideal pilots, but James's point here is not what should control or have power. His point is simply the power of a small instrument." (I noticed this.)
"Jewish pictures of Gehenna...typically included flame." (Gehenna was hell, the place of judgment for the damned.)
"...the tongue was like the deadliest snake, full of toxic venom." (That confirms my thought.)
"Some other Jewish teachers also noted the incongruity of blessing God while cursing other people, who were made in his image; even more often, they recognized that whatever one did to other humans, it was as if one did it to God himself, because they were made in his image." (I like his use of the word incongruity here. That's perfect.)
"Figs, olives, and grapes were the three most common agricultural products of the Judean hills, and alongside wheat they would have constituted the most common crops of the Mediterranean region as a whole. That everything brought forth fruit after its kind was a matter of common observation and became proverbial in Greco-Roman circles." (I'm guessing this is before they learned to graft one kind of branch onto another species!)
Synthesis
Here is where I summarize my main findings about the passage.
In James 3:1-12, James warns his readers about the power of the tongue, with special emphasis on its capability to cause great damage. He uses several common analogies to illustrate his point, but in another sense the tongue itself is a metaphor. Looking deeper, he is not referring just to the soft red thing inside human mouths, but of the entire system of human communication. This includes, of course, the source of what a tongue articulates, which is inner attitudes/thoughts/desires. As I noted in the bit::horse and rudder::ship analogies, the tools do not in themselves determine the direction. It is the human behind the tools which chooses which way to go. Likewise, by analogy, it would seem that James is implying that humans need to make better use of the tools of their tongues. Even if it seems impossible, they are still held responsible for their choice of words. The last verses underscore that Christians need to be living in full and practical agreement with their professions of faith. All of a disciple's words, not just on Sunday morning, need to reflect a reverence for God and his human creations.
