James 3: 1-12

¹ Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will face stricter judgment. ² For all of us make many mistakes. Anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is mature, able to keep the whole body in check with a bridle. ³ If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we guide their whole bodies. ⁴ Or look at ships: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, yet they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. ⁵ So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits.
  How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! ⁶ And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of life, and is itself set on fire by hell. ⁷ For every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, ⁸ but no one can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison. ⁹ With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse people, made in the likeness of God. ¹⁰ From the same mouth comes a blessing and a curse. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so. ¹¹ Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and brackish water? ¹² Can a fig tree, my brothers and sisters, yield olives or a grapevine figs? No more can salt water yield fresh.

Words matter. For those entrusted with the authority to speak on behalf of a community, to shape its life and actions, those words they speak in teaching and leadership can shape both the faithful and the perception of the faithful in the world around them. Yet, in an age where words have increased exponentially and everyone through the existing technology can have a platform to broadcast their opinions as facts, James’s warning is even more prescient. As a person who attempts to use my words carefully, I also see the way the tools of the information age have created an age of misinformation. I saw this firsthand during the week I was writing this reflection which I will share below, but I share Luke Timothy Johnson’s view that, “We dwell in a virtual Babel of linguistic confusion and misdirection.” (NIB XII: 206) In the United States we have often highlighted the value of free speech, but I fear that we have rarely emphasized the responsibility of utilizing of freedom of speech in a way that builds up the community of faith and our surrounding world.

James’s words about the tongue are likely intended for his entire audience, but he is intentional in his decision to begin this section by addressing teachers in the community. Teachers, to utilize James’s metaphors, can be the bit and bridle which guide the community, the rudder that steers the ship of the church through the strong winds of the world or they can be the fire which burns the community to ash and ruins. They are not to be like some of the religious leaders that Jesus spoke against in Matthew’s gospel:

They love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to have people call them rabbi.  But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers and sisters. Matthew 23: 6-8

If James is writing in the time leading up to the Jewish War where conflict was in the air and the wood is dry and easily kindled for revolution, it is probable that James, particularly with his words in the next section, is resisting those leaders in his community and in Judea who were using words to inflame. There have always been teachers who have used their words in irresponsible, uncaring, and hurtful ways but in times of conflict we often mistake cruelty and confidence for faith. James’s earlier words where faith is contrasted with doubt may lead some readers to mistakenly believe James advocates for this type of faith, but this chapter shows how mistaken that reading of James would be. Any leader who can bless God and curse people has missed what faith is for James. Faith for James does works born of gentleness and wisdom as the following section will highlight.

James can acknowledge that we all make mistakes, and that mistakes in speaking are perhaps the most difficult to restrain. James continues to utilize the Greek teleios (NRSVue mature, NRSV perfect)[1] which is a word of goal or destination. If you can restrain your words you are complete or whole or mature, and while words are important they need to be well chosen. James introduced this in chapter 1,[2] and now focuses his writing on several commonly used images for speech. Scot McKnight shows the way the metaphors that James uses are present in the writings of other ancient authors:

Plutarch compares words let loose to boats caught by winds that shipwreck and sparks caught by winds that set off fires…Philo connects horses and bits but what strikes the reader of his On the Creation is that these are set in a context of humans being made in God’s image and having the capacity to train animals. (83-86). In his Allegorical Interpretation of Genesis, Philo connects the rudder and boat to a mind set ablaze by irrational sense like fire (3.224). (McKnight, 2011, pp. 276-277)

Yet, James is also tapping into wisdom literature’s concern for the tongue. For example:

Lying lips conceal hatred, and whoever utters slander is a fool.  When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but the prudent are restrained in speech. The tongue of the righteous is choice silver; the mind of the wicked is of little worth. The lips of the righteous feed many, but fools die for lack of sense. Proverbs 10: 18-21

Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits. Proverbs 18:21

A person may make a slip without intending it. Who has not sinned with his tongue? Sirach 19:16[3]

Or in Matthew’s gospel:

I tell you, on the day of judgment you will have to give an account for every careless word you utter, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” Matthew 12: 36-37

Speech is important throughout both scripture and imagery related to speech and tongues abounds in the ancient world, but James’s words about the tongue still can shock. In James’s imagery the tongue seems to have a will of its own. As Joel Green notes:

We hear James’s charge that horses and ships can be controlled by the tongue seems out of control. Notice again James’s wording: “It boasts of great things” (and not, say, “With it we boast of great things”)—as if the tongue had a mind of its own. (Green, 2025, p. 102)

The word the NRSVue translates as ‘tame’ (damazo) is a word for subduing or restraining, and tame is probably a little weak in a context where the tongue is unrestrainable. The tongue can set ablaze, is a restless evil and full of deadly poison in what may be an echo of Psalm 140:3,       “They make their tongue sharp as a snake’s, and under their lips is the venom of vipers.” I’m writing this in the week before Pentecost when tongues of fire rested on the first apostles, but as Martha L. Moore-Keish aptly states:

at Pentecost, the tongues of fire were sent by God, empowering people to speak by the power of the Spirit. The question is: Whose fiery tongues are inspiring us? Whose words are we speaking? (Moore-Keish, 2019, p. 125)

Unrestrained tongues which can curse those made in God’s image are not inspired by the wisdom from above (as the next section discusses) but are earthly, unspiritual, and devilish. They are set on fire by hell/Gehenna[4] and bring death instead of life. Many may have grown up with the proverb, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” But James knows better, as does scripture. As Proverbs says, death and life are in the power of the tongue.

James has earlier discussed a double-minded faith and now talks about a contradictory action by the tongue which should be as impossible as both fresh and brackish water coming from the same spring at the same time. Here the tongue is used to bless God and curse people made in the likeness of God. Just as faith of Jesus is incompatible with favoritism to the rich, it is incompatible with cursing another person. James does not limit this cursing to the community of faith, for Jewish thought would say that all humanity, male and female, are formed in God’s image. Just as fig trees cannot bear olives or vineyards figs, so the tongue of a person of faith should only flow with blessings for both God and those formed in God’s image.

As I have sat with James’s words through this week, I have also had to sit with a heartbreaking image of how true James’s words are. My congregation is in Frisco, Texas a very diverse suburb of Dallas of approximately 250,000 people. Unlike many parts of Texas, the diversity in Frisco in heavily Asian, particularly Indian, in background and I will see people from my community playing cricket across the street from my church instead of football or baseball most Sunday mornings. Our congregation is situated next to a very large Hindu temple, and our communities have had an ongoing relationship and dialogue for eighteen years. But Frisco was also on the front page of the Dallas Morning News this morning for a contentious city council meeting on Tuesday night, which I was present for, where several individuals and groups unleashed their tongues in ways that were both painful and hateful. Some of these were people with authority over a church, others were people who called themselves Christian. Much of it was political theater and may have been motivated by envy or selfish ambition, and it did bring disorder and wickedness. It did not look like the fruits of wisdom that James discusses below. In James’s time and in ours not many should be leaders and those who are must continually learn to restrain their tongues and speak words of blessing instead of cursing.

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[1] For a fuller discussion of teleios see my reflection on Perfection and Blamelessness in the Bible.

[2] James 1: 19, 26.

[3] See also Proverbs 12:18; 13:3; 16:27; 18:7, 21; 26: 21; Sirach 28: 13-14, 18-22.

[4] See my reflection on Gehenna, Tartaros, Sheol, Hades, and Hell for a fuller discussion of these terms in the New Testament.