Self-mastery of the Tongue; James 3:3

James 3:2 ^NASB “For we all stumble in many {ways.}…” James includes himself in the warning, he is no more prefect than the rest of us. All have a sin nature, it is not taken away at salvation. This is a very serious warning for anyone who aspires to be a teacher, for five reasons:

1) Teachers handle the infallible Word of God. 2 Timothy 3:16 says that all Scripture is God-breathed--the Greek word THEOPNEUTOS [qeopneustoj], a combination of the word for breath and God. He is the active one involved in the process.

2) As a teacher you are responsible to communicate truth, eternal truth, the truth of Scripture, not opinions. It is very important for teachers to make sure that they don’t find something in the Scripture that just substantiates their own opinion. They have to make sure that they are doing exegesis, which is deriving truth out of Scripture, and not eisegesis which is reading opinions into Scripture.

3) There is always the temptation for teachers to become subjective in times of testing, so that when you as a teacher are going through times of testing in your own life it is very easy for you to become subjective and to start looking at the Scripture through the limitations of your own experiences. So it is important for anyone who is handling the Word of God to have developed a certain stage of objectivity so that they can rise above their own culture, rise above their own background, rise above their own personal prejudices and biases and likes and dislikes, so that they can have true objectivity when it comes to the Word of God. This is true for any pastor.

4) Teachers need to learn their own cultural biases and limitations and not read those into the text of Scripture. The classic example we have today is that we are living in what one particular church historian has called the psychotherapeutic age. That is how he defines the post-World War II era, i.e. the age of psychology, and we are all imbued from one degree to another with psychological terminology. Just think back and see if you have used any words like victimization, self-image, or anything else like that in the last week. That is just one indication of how you have picked up and been affected by this in our society.

5) We need to realise, as James states here, there is a greater judgment to those who teach the Word.

The key phrase that we need to focus on here related to the use of the tongue and sins of the tongue is “self-mastery.” James is saying it is clear that as we advance to spiritual maturity the key evidence is that we master what we say. We no longer succumb as easily to foot and mouth disease. We master what we say and we keep our mouths shut. This is the second part of verse 2: “If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body as well.” James is not advocating silence, he is advocating self-mastery. James is saying that if you are mature, if you can control your mouth, then you will be able to master all other areas of testing and temptation in the life. He gives two different illustrations of this in verses 3 and 4.

James 3:3 ^NASB “Now if we put the bits into the horses’ mouths so that they will obey us, we direct their entire body as well. [4] Look at the ships also, though they are so great and are driven by strong winds, are still directed by a very small rudder wherever the inclination of the pilot desires.” In both of these illustrations what James is saying is that the tongue, though it is small like the bit in a horse’s mouth or a rudder on a ship it has impact far beyond its size. Thus every believer needs to master the tongue. Once you say something you can never take it back.

Proverbs has a lot to say about sins of the tongue. Proverbs 10:19 ^NASB “When there are many words, transgression is unavoidable, But he who restrains his lips is wise.” Some people talk a lot in times of adversity and stress and they communicate a lot of information that should be kept private.

Proverbs 13:3 ^NASB “The one who guards his mouth preserves his life; The one who opens wide his lips comes to ruin.”

Proverbs 21:23 ^NASB “He who guards his mouth and his tongue, Guards his soul from troubles.”

James 3:5 ^NASB “So also the tongue is a small part of the body, and {yet} it boasts of great things. See how great a forest is set aflame by such a small fire!”

Psalm 101:5 ^NASB “Whoever secretly slanders his neighbor, him I will destroy; No one who has a haughty look and an arrogant heart will I endure.” That ties the sin of gossip and slander to arrogance and pride.

Proverbs 10:18 ^NASB “He who conceals hatred {has} lying lips, And he who spreads slander is a fool.” The Bible just doesn’t mince words.

Proverbs 20:19 ^NASB “He who goes about as a slanderer reveals secrets, Therefore do not associate with a gossip.” The point is that the tongue is small and the body is large and life has many facets to it, and with all of the damage that can be done to another human being it all can be done with this small part of the body, the tongue. The tongue is the greatest weapon that we have. It can be a source of blessing and it can be a source of condemnation and destruction. It all depends ultimately on what is in your soul. What is it that controls the tongue? In your soul you either have human viewpoint or divine viewpoint in control. If it is human viewpoint than you have converted the outside pressure of adversity to the inside pressure of stress in the soul and you are under the control of the sin nature. If divine viewpoint then you are operating under the filling of God the Holy Spirit and you are walking by means of God the Holy Spirit. But in each situation you can either be positive and apply doctrine or you can be negative and operate under the power of the sin nature. The issue is that what comes out of your mouth is going to reveal whether you are operating on human viewpoint or divine viewpoint. This is what James is going to point out in the coming verses.

James 3:6 ^NASB “And the tongue is a fire, the {very} world of iniquity; the tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of {our} life, and is set on fire by hell.” Here James uses a very interesting phrase. He uses the word KOSMOS [kosmoj] which refers to several things in the Scriptures. It can refer to the inhabited world, e.g. John 3:16, “God so loved the world.” It can also refer to Satan’s system of thinking. But it also has the meaning of order and adornment, the idea underlying the English word “cosmetic” which is derived from this Greek word KOSMOS. So the word here has the idea of adornment and organization that is related to the genitive of description here, ADIKOS [a)dikoj], which literally means wrongdoing. It is not a word for an unbeliever, it is a word for wrongdoing and it is used in a verse that should be familiar to all of us, 1 John 1:9. It basically means wrongdoing or unrighteousness. 1 John 5:17 says that all ADIKIOS [unrighteousness] is sin.” So this is just another way that it is talking about sin, the sin that is generated and related to sins of the tongue. The sins of the tongue are particularly devastating because they affect the entire body, not just the physical body but the body of Christ, the congregation. The James goes on to say, it “sets on fire the course of {our} life, and is set on fire by hell.” The course of our life refers to every category of our life, so that the sins of the tongue are dynamic in that they affect every arena of life and it, in turn, is set on fire by Gehenna. Here the word translated “hell” is not the word Hades, it is the word Gehenna. It comes from the Hebrew word gehinnom, and that refers to the Valley of Hinnom which is a deep, narrow valley just to the south of Jerusalem. Originally it was the sight where when the fire god of Baalim and Molech were introduced by Ahaz the Jews, when they succumbed to idolatry, would sacrifice their children by placing them in the fire to Molech. After the reforms of Josiah when this idolatry was stopped they turned the Valley of Hinnom into the garbage dump for Jerusalem where everything was incinerated, so that it was continually in flame. Because of that imagery and because the fire never went out it became a symbol for the future torment and judgment of all unbelievers. So it is basically a synonym for the lake of fire. So James is saying that the tongue defiles the entire body, it also sets on fire every area, every category of life, and it in turn is set on fire by hell. In other words, as a product of the sin nature all the sins of the tongue promote the agenda of Satan, so that all sin is related to the ultimate of arrogance in Satan.

Then in verses 7 & 8 he will go on to describe the difficulty of mastering the tongue.