Winston Churchill rallied the Free World against the threat of totalitarianism by the power of his speech. During those same days, Adolph Hitler, mesmerized the German nation with his oratorical skill, and led the Axis war machine to enslave much of Europe. Churchill and Hitler demonstrate the power of the tongue to achieve good or evil.
The Bible says a great deal about the power of speech for right or for wrong. James offers the classic Biblical exposition on the problem of the human tongue. Teachers instruct by example and by words, so James begins this chapter insisting that those who desire to teach must understand their great responsibility and that they face an ultimate judgment based on their words. The ability to control the tongue is a test of character, not just for teachers, but also for all Christians. It is a proof of maturity and self-control.
James’ concern is to tame the tongue. This little organ offers an index on our well-being. In a doctor’s office the physician will often ask you to show him your tongue. It tells him something about your physical condition. It also reveals the temperature of your soul.
I. THE TONGUE IS SMALL BUT POWERFUL FOR DOING EVIL -vv. 3-5
James presents three illustrations to demonstrate the impact of small things. A bit placed in a horse’s mouth is little, but it controls the animal. A rudder is tiny, compared to the size of a ship, but it determines the vessel’s course in powerful ocean currents. An insignificant spark may go unnoticed, but it can cause a great fire, destroying an entire forest. The tongue is minor in size, but it has major potential to influence and destroy.
The element of control is vital in each of the illustrations. The strength of the horse has revolutionized human history. Indeed, we measure energy by horsepower. Unless controlled, however, that strength is ineffective at best; at worst it is destructive. A great ship is capable of transporting people and valuable goods. But if the rudder doesn’t operate correctly, the rich cargo can be lost or destroyed. A rudderless, uncontrollable ship is worthless. A controlled fire provides warmth and comfort in a home. Out of control, that same fire becomes an agent of tragedy.
James says, “Likewise the tongue....” (v. 5). The tongue has the power to destroy. Like a stampede of horses, or a wildfire, it can do irreparable harm. False teaching, malicious gossip, and even slight innuendos can destroy confidence and undermine reputations.
Words must be used very carefully. A visitor to the U. S. attempted to answer a question about his family, “Do you have any children?” Trying to explain that his wife could not have a child, he said, “My wife is impregnable!” Seeing that the word wasn’t quite proper, he said, “No; you see my wife is inconceivable!” Again realizing that his adjective wasn’t appropriate, he finally and triumphantly exclaimed, “You see my wife is unbearable!” The following sentences are literal, taken from actual letters received by public welfare departments:
“I cannot get sick pay. I have 6 children. Can you tell me why?”
“I am glad to report that my husband who was reported missing is dead.”
“I am very much annoyed to find that you have branded my boy illiterate, as this is a dirty lie. I was married a week before he was born.”
“Mrs. Jones has not had any clothes for a year, and has been visited by the clergy regularly.”
Careful thought must be given to the power of our words. An untimely word or an unfair evaluation may do damage that lasts a lifetime. Someone has said, “The human tongue is small, hidden and boneless. However [it] is so powerful. The fist can reach only about three feet, but the tongue has the reach of an intercontinental ballistic missile. The tongue can separate, kill, wound, wreck, split and alienate” [Tal D. Bonham, God Doesn’t Want Your Money (VIP, n.d.), 6].
On the ability of the tongue to “make great boasts” one man comments:
It can sway men to violence, or it can move them to the noblest actions. In can instruct the ignorant, encourage the dejected, comfort the sorrowing, and soothe the dying. Or, it can crush the human spirit, destroy reputations, spread distrust and hate, and bring nations to the brink of war [Curtis Vaughn, James, A Study Guide (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1969)].
II. THE TONGUE IS UNCONTROLLABLY DANGEROUS ... vv. 6-8
The tongue has cataclysmic power: “The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell” (v. 6). The grim assessment of this verse presents one of the most difficult passages of the epistle.
The tongue is compared with an out-of-control fire that destroys everything in its path. James expands the comparison with the remark that it is “a world of evil....” “Kosmos”, or “world” is always used by James in a bad light. In Greek “world” and “evil” both have the definite article, making a literal translation read, “the world of the evil.” So James considers the tongue a great system of evil. It embodies the essence of all that is wicked in the world. It is almost impossible to seethe with anger, to burn with lust, or to covet power without somehow expressing it with the tongue. “It corrupts the whole person....”
Paul Harvey, the radio commentator, tells how an Eskimo kills a wolf. The grisly story offers fresh insight into the consuming, self-destroying corruption of the tongue’s appetite. He says:
First the Eskimo coats his knife blade with animal blood and allows it to freeze. Then he adds another layer of blood, and another, until the blade is completely concealed by frozen blood.
Next, the hunter fixes his knife in the ground with the blade up. When a wolf follows his sensitive nose to the source of the scent and discovers the bait he licks it, tasting the fresh-frozen blood. He begins to lick faster, more and more vigorously, lapping the blade until the keen edge is bare. Feverishly now, harder and harder the wolf licks the blade in the Arctic night. So great becomes his craving for blood that the wolf does not notice the razor sharp sting of the naked blade on his tongue nor does he recognize the instant at which his insatiable thirst is being satisfied by his own warm blood. His carnivorous appetite just craves more—until the dawn finds him dead in the snow! [Leadership (Winter, 1987), 41].
The next phrase, “...sets the whole course of his life on fire...” is very uncertain. It has been translated, “setting on fire the cycle of nature” (RSV); “setting fire to the round circle of existence” (Moffatt); “it keeps the wheel of our existence red-hot” (NEB); and “sets the whole course of our lives on fire” (Weymouth). The tongue affects every sphere of life. Phillips’ vivid rendering is probably close to the word-picture James intended to convey: “It can make the whole of life a blazing hell.”
James uses the word “hell” in the next phrase. The actual word is “Gehenna,” and refers to a famed geographical site. Gehenna is a valley (the Valley of Hinnom) just outside Jerusalem that was used as a garbage dump. Fires blazed there continually and the valley came to be associated with the final place of punishment for the wicked. The metaphor graphically points to the source of corrupt speech. The filth from our tongues comes from the cosmic rubbish heap! All too quickly an uncontrolled tongue becomes the tool of Satan in spreading the fire of hell.
An uncontrolled tongue is like a wild fire; it is also like a wild beast. “All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, but no man can tame the tongue” (vv. 7-8a).
We marvel at human success in taming animals that are known to hunt and kill. A great variety of beasts have been tamed or domesticated to become friends and helpers of mankind. Others have been “tamed” to entertain in circuses and sea shows. The Greek verb translated “tamed” includes the idea of such domestication, but it also includes the idea of subjugation or control.
James effectively presses his point home. Though able to control wild creatures, human beings continually fail to control the muscle in their mouths. Man lost control of himself at the fall, and is now dominated by his tongue. James allows no exceptions, “...no man can tame the tongue” (v. 8). Then he offers a double picture of this undisciplined member, “It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.”
The “restless” tongue is unreliable, ever ready to break out in vicious words. Alexander Maclaren suggests the picture of “some caged but unsubdued wild animal, ever pacing uneasily up and down its den” [Quoted in D. Edmond Hiebert, The Epistle of James: Tests of a Living Faith (Chicago: Moody Press, 1979), 221]. It is “evil”, “always liable to break out” [Phillips] in a base and degrading manner.
Mixing his metaphors, James concludes that the tongue is “full of deadly poison.” Poison is an excellent choice of words to describe the results of an untamed tongue. With toxic effect, the tongue can spread an atmosphere of defeat, and a pall of unbelief and despair.
Charles Osgood, the outstanding CBS newsman, reported the demolition of a Denver landmark. In two moving sentences he said: “For seventy-five years, the Cosmopolitan had been a leading hotel in Denver, Colorado. It was demolished in eight seconds.” Someone asked what he was thinking as he spoke those words. Osgood replied,
Construction is a long tedious process. Destruction is instantaneous. I wasn’t just talking about buildings. I was talking about reputations; how somebody can work all his life constructing what he believes is a work of art, or a lifetime of political activity, or whatever a person does. I thought it’s much easier to be destructive than constructive [Source unknown].
III. THE TONGUE IS TERRIBLY INCONSISTENT ... vv. 9-12
The curious blend of good and evil that can be achieved by the tongue is acknowledged. It can “praise” and it can “curse.” We can celebrate God with one breath, and condemn someone made in His image with the next. We speak gracious words to those we love, and then in frustration, lash out at them. We address our children with loving tenderness at one time, and with harshness at another.
With tender rebuke, James reproves the strange ambivalence of such behavior, “My brothers, this should not be” (v.10). The inconsistency of good and evil speech proceeding from the same source cannot be tolerated among those who are in God’s family.
Pointing to natural phenomenon, James shows that such contradiction runs against God’s pattern in creation. A spring releases good, fresh water, or it emits brackish water. It never produces a mixture. A fig tree always yields figs, and a grapevine always produces grapes. Olives never grow on fig trees. That is contrary to nature.
Something contrary to nature is at work in your life. Your tongue is an excellent indicator of the state of your spiritual health. If your speech is edifying, encouraging, and uplifting, you are controlled and directed by the Holy Spirit. If cursing and bitterness are the products of your mouth, you are directed by the desires of a sinful nature. Jesus said, “...out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34). We battle with an old nature that is contrary to God. These uncontrollable tongues will only be suppressed by the power of the Holy Spirit.
I suggest three steps to tame the tongue. Since the tongue speaks what the mind thinks, mind control is a prerequisite for tongue control. Paul proposed such control in Romans 12:1-2: “Therefore I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing, and perfect will.”
The tongue is not specifically addressed in these verses, but Paul recognized that any good behavior originates with a transformed mind. Our patterns of thinking must conform to Christ’s standard, not the world’s. This is possible only as we surrender ourselves to God.
Frank Gaebelein wrote:
Tongue control? It will never be achieved unless there is first of all heart and mind control…. When any Christian comes to the point of yielding to the Lord-in full sincerity, cost what it may—control of his thought life, the problem of managing his tongue will be solved, provided that such a surrender goes deeper than the intellect and reaches the emotions and the will. For the Bible makes a distinction between mere intellectual knowledge of God and the trust of the heart [Frank E. Gaebelein, The Practical Epistle of James, Tests of a Living Faith. (Great Neck, NY: Channel Press, 1955), 80f].
Have you done that? Have you said to God, “I am not my own; I belong only to you; do with me what you will. Here is my mind, my talent, all I possess. I am yours. Make me what you will have me to be!” When you make that commitment, God will begin to produce the control and discipline (including discipline of the tongue) you need.
The second step to tongue control is obedience. Paul says we have an obligation to bring our thoughts into obedience to Jesus Christ - “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5). If you are serious about committing yourself to Christ, you must also be serious about learning what He has said. It is futile to pray, “Here I am, use me, I give myself to you,” if you say, “Now I’m going to do what I want to do.” Jesus asked, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” (Luke 6:46). When we seek to understand what God has said through the Scriptures, and make a commitment to obey, God initiates a change in our minds. We begin to think differently and when we think differently we begin to speak differently. Then tongue control becomes a genuine possibility.
The final step to a tame tongue is positive speech. We should avoid saying improper things, but we must also say the things we ought to say in an affirming style. God takes note of what we say. The last book of the Old Testament says, “Then those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honored his name” (Malachi 3:17).
Our tongues are to glorify God, but the praise is not just from the tongue. It is the expression of our minds and hearts. God is truly praised when our whole being exalts Him. He remembers such praise and gives us the ability to be a blessing to others.
