The Soil Of Slander - James 4:11-12 Series

James 4:11 Brothers, do not speak against one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges his brother speaks against the law and judges the law. When the law you judge, you are not a doer of law but a judge. 12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?

Introduction

Are you a plus person or a minus person? A plus person is someone who, whenever they talk about someone else, they add to that person’s reputation. They build that person up in the eyes of whoever they are talking to. They notice good things about people, and they talk about those things. A minus person is the opposite. When they see you make a mistake – people are going to hear about it. If you do something good, they may not notice. But they have eagle eyes for noticing your mistakes.

How would it hit you if you found out today that you had a reputation around this church of being a minus person? What if you found out that the people in your prayer group have to be careful what they say when you’re around, because they see how you talk about other people to them, and they figure you must talk the same way about them when they’re not around. On the other hand, how would you feel if you found out that you had a reputation around this church of being a big plus person? That would be pretty cool, right? Now one more question – is there any chance of that in your case – that you are known as a plus person? If you are like me, there is probably been multiple times in your life when you resolved to become a plus person, only to find that your speech patterns stay pretty much the same. Why is that? What is so hard about just having edifying speech instead of tearing people down?

We have been studying verse by verse through the book of James and we come to a passage today where James is going to dig down beneath the surface and show us some attitudes and perspectives that push us towards putting each other down instead of building each other up. He starts by giving us a command.

The Command: Do Not Speak Against One Another

James 4:11 Brothers, do not slander one another.

Definition

The Greek word translated slander in the NIV literally means to speak against. I am not sure why the NIV translates it slander the first time, and speak against the other two times, but all three times in this verse it is the exact same Greek word, and speak against is a very direct translation. Katalaleo – laleo – to speak, and kata – against. It is a broad term that can be used to describe any kind of speech that is against another person. That would include false accusations or lies (1 Pe.2:12, 3:16). It would include gossip – speaking about someone in a way that hurts their reputation (Ps.101:5). In Numbers 21:5 it is used to describe the people grumbling against leadership. It can be done behind the person’s back or in front of their face. It can be false things or true things. It can be done by putting the spotlight on the person’s weaknesses. It can be done by divulging secrets. It can be done by telling what the person did wrong but you leave out the parts about mitigating circumstances. Or maybe you drop subtle hints that lead people to assume they had bad motives for what they did. It can be done by overstating the person’s faults, or even understating their graces. You talk about their good points, but you do it in a way that does not really cause people to think more highly of them. There are a thousand ways we can speak against one another. Basically - any kind of speech that you wouldn’t want said about you – that is what is in mind here.

And it is an extremely common problem because all you have to do to commit this sin is observe reality. All the people around us are constantly sinning, constantly making mistakes, constantly exposing weaknesses and failures and faults and inadequacies. So all you have to do to commit this sin is observe what people do and talk about it. So this is an incredibly easy sin to commit. And not only easy to commit, but easy to justify.

“All I’m doing is observing reality. I don’t mean him any harm. How can I be faulted for just stating the facts?”

Why Is It Wrong?

Is it such an evil thing to just state the facts? It depends on which facts you state. No one states all the facts. Why are you stating the ones you’re stating? Or to back it up a step, of all the thousands of things your mind discards as unworthy of being noticed or remembered, why did you notice and remember the ones you noticed and remembered? James is going to answer that question for us by once again taking us down to the source – inside the heart.