James 3:3-12 – “Seeing”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

³Observe the horses: We place the bridles into their mouths into them obeying us and we turn about their whole body. ⁴Observe also the ships, being so great and driven by fierce winds, and turned about by a very small rudder, wherever the impulse of the pilot purposes. ⁵Thus also, the tongue is a tiny member and boasts great things. Behold! A small fire ignites an entire forest, ⁶and the tongue [is] a fire, the world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, defiling the whole body, igniting the circle of the life, and being ignited by hell.

⁷For every nature of creature, whether birds, reptiles, or sea creatures, is tamed or has been tamed to the nature of humans, ⁸but no one is able to tame the tongue, an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. ⁹With it we bless the Lord and Father and with it we curse the men, ones made according to the likeness of God. ¹⁰Blessing and cursing come out of the same mouth. My brothers, these things ought not thus to be. ¹¹A spring never produces the sweet and the bitter out of the same opening. ¹²My brothers, a fig tree is not able to do olives or a grapevine figs, thus neither sweet water to do salt.

Another thing that strikes me about this passage is its predominantly negative posture. There are definitely passages in the Bible to encourage us in the positive uses and effects of the tongue, such as “A wholesome tongue is a tree of life” (Prov 15:4), “The lips of the wise spread knowledge” (15:7), and “… How good is a timely word!” (15:23). However, James here only suggests two possible positive uses, teaching and “blessing” God. Other than that, he seems to be highlighting our mouths at their absolute worst: “… the tongue [is] a fire, the world of unrighteousness… defiling the whole body, igniting the circle of the life, and being ignited by hell… no one is able to tame the tongue, an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.”

It is “ignited by hell … an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.” “Ignited by hell” is certainly a fearful epitaph, and then he describes it as “an unruly evil.” The word translated “unruly” conveys the image of a violent beast which cannot be safely caged or chained. “Full of deadly poison” obviously suggests the image of an evil serpent like a reared up cobra or a huge rattlesnake coiled and ready to strike.

I would think a good question to ask is why? Why in this particular place in the Bible is so much negative about the mouth emphasized? In fact the passage doesn’t go on to say, “Okay, instead of that, here’s how you should talk.” Interestingly, the very next verse (v13) says, “Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom.” Nothing about words.

Paul admonishes us in Eph 4:29: “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” There we’re warned against the negative, then encouraged in the positive. But not here in James.

I wonder why? What in particular is the Lord trying to accomplish through James in this specific passage?

Here’s another intriguing thought: This is, in the Bible, the single largest passage regarding the tongue. If one stops at v12, then it is twelve verses together in one continuous thought allowing us to see our mouths through God’s eyes. The only other major “tongue” emphasis in the Bible would be the book of Proverbs, although there, of course, the “speech” verses are peppered throughout the entire book, mingled with a host of other subjects. There are, in the Bible, certainly many other verses on the mouth, but they are always, like Proverbs, mingled with a host of other thoughts. It occurs to me, if we were to ask the question, “What does God think of our mouths? How does He see our use of speech?”—if we truly believe in the sufficiency of Scripture, the answer would be to ask, “Well, where in the Bible does the Lord most directly address our mouths?” The answer? James 3. This is it. This is that major passage. This is what God sees and what He thinks.

And it is overwhelmingly negative. “Set on fire by hell, an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.”

Yikes.

Woe is me. I am undone. I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell amongst a people of unclean lips.

Seems I’ve heard those words before somewhere.

Oh, yeah. That was the guy who saw the Lord, high and lifted up.

He didn’t say it until he saw the Lord. Then it crushed him.

Could it be that James’ negativity surprises me precisely because I’m not seeing the Lord “high and lifted up,” that I’m not seeing myself, and in particular my mouth, in the light of that Glory?

Yikes.

It is true. I don’t need more rules. I need a Savior! I need a coal from the altar.

Set on fire by hell. An unruly evil. Full of deadly poison. No wonder He says, “Be swift to hear and slow to speak.”

God deliver us. Probably nowhere is legalism’s failure more conspicuous than when it comes to our mouths, if we would only open our eyes to see. Here we are, thinking we need a few “rules of communication” and all will be well when in fact we’re dealing with a fire from hell, a raging beast that cannot be safely caged or chained, something the Lord Himself already told us no man can tame.

It is true. Fig trees don’t bear olives. A spring never produces sweet and bitter water out of the same opening … Except when the spring is my mouth.

I think this passage leaves us exactly where it should, with our hand over our mouth. It doesn’t conclude by offering guidelines for better communication, precisely because that isn’t above all else what we need. God resists the proud; He gives His grace to the humble. This is precisely where we need to end this major passage on the tongue – humbled before God, deeply aware how much we need Jesus, how badly we need to yield our hearts and mouths and lives to the Spirit of God, how utterly helpless (and evil) we are without Him.

I’m going to end this post with this prayer, “Lord, I don’t think I’ve ever really seen my mouth (perhaps myself) so clearly through Your eyes. It is true. My tongue is set on fire by hell. No amount of “rules” will fix it. I can’t tame it. For Isaiah, You took a coal from the altar and touched his mouth and said to him, ‘See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.’ Is there some way today that You take a coal from the altar and touch our lips? If there is, then do it to me. If You already have, if the answer is Your blessed Holy Spirit already living inside of me, then help me yield to Him more control. May He particularly do a miracle in me and change this water into wine, take my tongue from hell and make it a tongue from Heaven.”

Thou, God, seest me.