James 3:8-10
…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.
Children can be cruel. When I was in middle school, our grade took a field trip. In typical fashion, my girlfriend and I sat together on the bus. Her friends sat across the aisle from us and were gossiping away about someone. I could not hear that well and chimed in, “who? Who are you talking about?” My girlfriend turned around and loudly said, “Mark, you are so nosy.” It embarrassed me, and I sunk down seething with a wishful vitriolic comeback that I was not witty enough to think up at the time. To this day, that girl still has no filter.
All of us say things we should not and hurt others. We certainly have been on the receiving end of others’ cutting words. The adage, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me,” is not true. Words do hurt. We can say, “I’m rubber, you’re glue…” all we want, but we are not rubber, and those hurtful words stick in our hearts and heads. Our words should not be poison, but honey.
James is speaking of our tongues in this passage. The context begins in verse one and continues through verse 12. He gives two prominent illustrations of our tongues being like rudders on a ship, small yet powerful enough to turn the large barge. The second is that they are like a spark, so tiny, yet it can cause a whole forest to burn uncontrollably. And James emphasizes the need to tame our tongues because we, as Christians, should not want what we say to get out of hand.
In verse eight, he seems to rethink what he says. He gives us that three-letter word that we need to be mindful of when reading our Bibles, “but.” What is his contrast? It is this. He tells us we need to tame the tongue because it is so powerful and can do much damage. However, because of its power, our human nature makes it very hard to tame. In fact, look at who he says cannot tame the tongue, “no man.” No person in and of themselves can do what he speaks of in verses 1-7. Augustine says this,
He does not say no one can tame the tongue, but no one of men: so that when it is tamed, we confess that this is brought about by the pity, the help, and the grace of God.
Here is a beautiful truth. No one can tame the tongue. Our sinful nature keeps us from preserving words and maintaining thoughts. No person can tame the tongue, but Christ can. It is only God the Holy Spirit that can supernaturally tame our tongue. To do this, He goes straight to our heart (Mark 7:14-15; Psa. 51:10) and mind (Rom. 12:1-2). The Holy Spirit gives us increasing power to monitor and control what we say. For when we feel offended, or unjustly criticized, or threatened over a seeming loss, He will keep us from lashing out and over-reacting. So, while it is impossible to tame the tongue in our strength, it is possible to do so with God’s strength.
So, that is the hope we have when it comes to tongue maintenance. Our hope is always Christ. Always.
However, James wants to drive the point home. He does not stop with rudders and sparks as illustrations. Notice what he says next, “it is restless and full of deadly poison.” Here are two reasons it so dangerous: 1) it never rests, and 2) it is deadly. The “never resting” reminds me of a snake’s flickering tongue.
I taught a student who loved snakes. As a science teacher, I received a lot of “gifts” from students, especially in the category of animals. This particular student wanted to go to college and study snakes, and he already had a lot of knowledge as a middle school student. He taught the class one time the reason why snakes flick their tongues. It is the way they perceive the world. They use their tongue to “taste” the chemicals on the ground and in the air. They have strong receptors that transfer this information from the roof of their mouth to their brain. Our tongues are restless like a snake’s tongue, but not for receiving information, instead for spewing poison. It is a characteristic of our fickleness—one moment sweet like honey, the next wanting to make a deadly attack.
Chuck Swindoll says, “it is as though we have a capsule of cyanide behind our teeth, ready to break open and ready to spread words of death wherever we go.”[i] I like that picture where our tongues contain “verbal cyanide.” If we were to translate the original language “full of deadly,” it literally would read “death bearing” or “death-bringing.” Our tongues are never without this poison, and if you know anything about poison, it works secretly and slowly.
How often have we been a part of a conversation that is going well, and we inject some small disparaging word that disrupts the flow, causes hurt, and damages the relationship? It often happens in marriages. Our spouse tells us something about their day that is nice and pleasant. Then we remember they did not take the trash out, and we remind them ever so backhandedly that they really are not as great as they think they are. Nothing big, right? No major transgression. Rather, we use our tongue with a quick strike, a piercing jab that gets right under the skin enough to “kill” them.
Most of us would be amazed at how much we actually talked. The Life Application Bible Commentary[ii] rightly gives us this thought. The world’s wisdom tells us that we should not hold anything back. We need to speak our minds and assert ourselves because we should not let anyone walk all over us. We are no one’s doormat. And so, we say:
- “Somebody had to tell him off.”
- “I needed to get it off my chest.”
- “You should go and giver her a piece of your mind.”
- “What I tell him will do him some good.”
- “Whew. I sure feel better for saying it.”
As Christians, we want our tongues to be a blessing to others. We should not make excuses for sounding off, and we should exercise restraint and control. We should allow God’s peace and wisdom to guide what we say. If we live with Christ’s attitude, we will biblically deal with our frustrations and realize how much our words impact another person before we say them.
You see, it is inconsistent for us to bless God and then curse someone. James speaks to the “double-minded” person. This kind of person goes to church and sings praises and lauds God as the magnificent Creator He is, and then leaves and curses the person who almost hits him in the parking lot as he is backing out of his parking spot. We often find ourselves fitting John Bunyan’s description, “a saint abroad, but a devil at home.” We speak with perfect courtesy to strangers, we preach love and kindness, and then we snap with ungracious words at home with our spouse and children. Many people pray with heavenly conviction concerning others at the public prayer meeting and then murder their reputations with malicious gossip in the parking lot or social media. Church family, let this not be us. May we heed James’s words.
I’ll leave you with some final thoughts from the late Adrian Rogers:
Watch the words of your mouth. One of the marks that a [person] has been born again is that his tongue is now controlled. You see, when we’re talking. We can’t be listening. And so, the same Bible that says, “Be ready to hear,” says, “Be slow to speak.” You see, the two are mutually incompatible.[iii]
[i] Chuck Swindoll, Quoted by H. Norman Wright in Quiet Time for Couples (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1990), 24. Although purifyandelevate owns this book, it can be assessed here on page February 24.
[ii] Life Application Commentary on the New Testament: James accessed on LOGOS bible Software 10/28/21.
[iii] Adrian Rogers, “The Meanest Member of Our Church,” sermon contributed to Sermon Audio on 10-11-2011 and can be accessed here.
Andrews PCA 