Understanding the Untamable Tongue | James 3:1-12
On the morning of September 13th, 1862, Union soldiers in Frederick, Maryland stumbled upon a piece of paper wrapped around three cigars that detailed the battle plans of the Confederate army led by General Robert E. Lee. The battle plans mapped out the Confederate strategy for their Antietam campaign and, in the wrong hands, left them as spread out, sitting ducks, vulnerable to a Union army led by General George McClellan who knew their secrets. According to one to Civil War historian, “No general in the war ‘was ever given so fair a chance to destroy the opposing army one piece at a time.’”
Unfortunately, General McClellan was slow to act and he squandered the opportunity for an easy victory due to his overabundance of caution. While the Union army still won the Battle of Antietam, the price they paid for victory was much higher than it should have been.
In James chapter 3, the Apostle James lays out for us the battle plans of the untamable tongue and gives us an opportunity to understand it better so that we might not be caught unaware in our fight against its evil.
So if you are able, would you please stand with us as we read from God’s holy and authoritative Word. May we humbly receive it now…
1 Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. 2 For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body.
3 If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. 4 Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, 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 things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! 6 And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell.
7 For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, 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. 11 Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? 12 Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.
If you remember from last week, Pastor Ryan powerfully and effectively preached on the relationship between faith and works. The Apostle James wants his readers to have a living and active faith and not a cold and dead faith, and so he reminds them at the end of chapter 2, “For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead” (James 2:26).
Now, as we turn to chapter 3, James also wants us to realize that “words are also works” (Tasker via Moo, pg. 182). The reality of our living faith not only comes out of our fingertips, but it also passes through our vocal chords and tongues, and comes out of our mouths.
As James first warned us in chapter 1 verse 26, he said, “If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless.”
Now here in chapter 3, verses 1 to 12, James slows down and paints vivid pictures for us so that we might understand our tongues better. Because… Only by rightly understanding the tongue can you strive to tame it with God’s help.
James begins this section with a sweeping warning. In verse 1, he says, “Not many of you should become teachers.” And while it may seem that he is singling out teachers and Christian leaders in our passage, do not miss the fact that he addresses his audience by saying “my brothers.” Other translations use the phrase my fellow believers.
James is talking to a general Christian audience—like you all—and he wants to warn them about the significant dangers of the tongue, and he does this by pointing specifically to teachers, who make their living with their tongues. As one commentator says, “Teachers are especially vulnerable to failures of speech because their role demands that they speak so much. More words mean more errors” (Doriani via Moo, pg. 187).
For anyone here who is eager to be an elder or a teacher in the church, for anyone who wants positions of authority in life that demand you to be in front of the camera, for anyone who loves to hear their own voice, James says, WATCH OUT!
He knows how dangerous the tongue is, he knows how often the book of Proverbs deals with issues of the tongue, and as a wise pastor preaching to his fellow believers whom he loves—preaching to YOU, he cannot remain silent.
And the warning here in verse 1 regarding teachers is the springboard he uses to launch into his larger discourse on the tongue.
And this morning, like the good Puritans that we should be, we are going to mine this passage and look at 4 aspects of the tongue that James highlights here in the hope that by understanding it better we might strive to tame it with God’s help.
First, we will look at the disproportionate power of the tongue. (v.3-5)
THE POWER OF THE TONGUE
In verses 3 through 5, James gives us three different images to inform us about the tongue. He compares it to a bit, to a rudder, and to a spark.
Each of these three things are simultaneously small in their relative size and yet amazingly powerful in their impact—they punch way above their weight class.
James wants us to know that the tongue has incredible potential for good and for bad—it is potent.
On the positive side, James says that when a rider puts a bit and bridle on a horse, he can steer the entire body of the animal in the direction he wants it to go. Or like the rudder of a ship, the pilot can rotate the helm and steer the ship however he wishes and the whole vessel turns accordingly. We may not be as familiar with the nautical language as James’s original hearers, but the idea is clear: These relatively small things have such a significant impact for good. Likewise, James says, the tongue, though small, controls and governs the whole body of a person.
On the negative side, James speaks of a small fire leading to a huge conflagration. The NIV translates that word “small fire” as “spark”. We understand this don’t we, one tiny spark has the potential to burn down the Black Hills or ignite a California forest fire. It doesn’t take much! When we think of our tongues, one small word can ruin relationships. Perhaps you can imagine an amazing, hour-long conversation you are having with your friend that goes up in flames because of one off-hand comment you made that only took 2 seconds to say. For something so small, the tongue boasts of great things and does great damage—it is volatile beyond its size.
Matthew Henry writes,
“There is a wonderful beauty in these comparisons, to show how things of small bulk may yet be of vast use. And hence we should learn to make the due management of our tongues more our study, because, though they are little members, they are capable of doing a great deal of good or a great deal of hurt.”
Do not underestimate the tongue. James wants us to recognize its power so that we would treat it with the seriousness and the wisdom it deserves.
Proverbs warns us that, “A fool's mouth is his ruin, and his lips are a snare to his soul” (Proverbs 18:7).
Elsewhere it says, “Do you see a man who is hasty in his words? There is more hope for a fool than for him” (Proverbs 29:20).
As Peter Parker once learned from his Uncle Ben, who must have learned from Jesus, with great power comes great responsibility. This is true when we think about the disproportionate power of the tongue. And as you consider this power, ask God for wisdom in how you govern it so that you don’t become the fool that Proverbs warns us about. For, “When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent” (Proverbs 10:19). So church, be wise.
Second, consider the sinister source of the tongue’s evil. (v.6)
THE SOURCE OF THE TONGUE
In verse 6, James abandons the comparisons and, instead, straightforwardly says, “And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness.”
This “slender portion of flesh [as Calvin says] contains the whole world of iniquity.”
We might rephrase what James says in verse 6 by saying that the tongue is a conduit that connects your body to the cosmos of sin and disrupts the entire course of your life.
But where does this evil and destructive wickedness come from? James tells us at the end of verse 6: hell. Specifically, he uses the word gehenna here, which, as a side note, is a further indication that James is the brother of Jesus because the only other place we find that word gehenna used in the New Testament is in the teaching of Jesus.
Brother James says that our tongues are set on fire by hell.
It’s as if Satan is holding a bellow to the fire and blowing temptations and evil into the flames. And the tongue is like kindling for the fires of hell, ready to ignite. One commentator says the tongue is a material fitted for receiving and fostering and increasing the fire of hell (Calvin). So, what do we do with something this dangerous? The Apostle Peter offers us wise counsel when he says,
“Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”
—1 Peter 5:8
The devil is an agent of destruction and chaos, he is a liar and the father of lies (cf. John 8:44). And he knows that the tongue is a weak link—it’s like the vulnerable drain in the wall at Helm’s Deep—and so he attacks it.
However, this is not to give us some cop out or excuse for our careless words. We are responsible for our tongues despite our tempter. Perhaps, you have heard people blame the devil, as though they were entirely passive agents in their sinful speech, but Jesus himself reminds us that,
“...what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person.”
— Matthew 15:18-20
The tongue wreaks havoc because it is set on fire by hell—that is the source of tongue fire. So be sober-minded and sensible when you think of where this fire comes from. But also know that the tongue reveals the heart of a person. And how we use our tongues shows what is within us.
Third, James draws our attention to the conflicting uses of the tongue. (v.9-12)
THE USES OF THE TONGUE
We use our tongues for a wide range of speech.
The Proverbs give us some vocabulary for this range of uses.
“The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence” (Proverbs 10:11).
“The words of the wicked lie in wait for blood, but the mouth of the upright delivers them” (Proverbs 12:6).
“There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing” (Proverbs 12:18).
“A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger” (Proverbs 15:1).
We could go on and on…We use our tongues for righteous ends and we use them for unrighteous ends. We bless, we belittle, we slander, we praise, we encourage, we cut down. We can be patient and we can be rash. We can build up our spouse and our children and our friends, and we can also destroy those who are closest to us.
We call this the problem of the tongues’ “doubleness.” Though we’re not serpents, there is a forked-ness about our tongues.
In verse 9, James takes this idea of the tongue’s doubleness to its climax when he says, “With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people made in the likeness of God.”
Douglas Moo comments, “If praising God is one of the highest forms of speech, cursing people is one of the lowest” (pg. 203). There may be no greater disparity in human language than that. It’s a gross distortion of the Royal Law: saying that we love God while we simultaneously hate our neighbor who is made in God’s likeness.
You don’t need to be in the sport’s locker room or on the sailor’s ship or in the military to hear language used sinfully like this. James isn’t simply concerned with a list of words you shouldn’t say, he’s concerned that we use our tongues hypocritically. The problem is that we are wildly inconsistent in how we use our tongues, and we leave a wake of destruction and damage behind us.
To quote Douglas Moo again, he says,
“We know from bitter experience that the childhood taunt ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me’ reverses the truth of the matter. Far easier to heal are the wounds caused by sticks and stones than the damage caused by words.”
James says in verse 10, “My brothers, these things ought not to be so.”
He goes on in the next two verses to illustrate how it is incompatible for good things to produce bad things and for bad things to produce good things. His point is that the fruit or product of something reveals its very nature (cf. Matthew 7:16). Again, James shows that faith and works, or more specifically here, faith and words, are connected.
But don’t just take James’s word for it, Jesus also says,
“I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned”
—Matthew 12:36-37
Your words reveal your heart. And if this is a hard pill for us to swallow, James doesn’t stop there. He goes on to also tell us that our tongues, which spring from inside us, cannot be tamed.
So fourth and finally, let us reflect on the untamable nature of the tongue. (v.7-8)
THE NATURE OF THE TONGUE
In verses 7 and 8, James says,
For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.
The point here is not for us to dwell on the four categories of animals that James references—though that might be fun, the point is to draw our attention back to the creation account in Genesis and to make an observation about the nature of the tongue in relation to how God made the world. Since Adam, humans have been naming and taming every species of creature under the sun. They have been subduing the earth as God had intended them to do. But in stark contrast to the effectiveness of mankind’s subduing of the animals, James says—in no unclear terms—that NO HUMAN BEING can tame the tongue. It is unlike the lower creatures; instead, it is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.
The next time that you fail to tame your tongue, perhaps you can be encouraged to know that you are in good company. You are in good company with every single person in the entire world. That might not exactly be comforting, but it orients us in this battle we face with our unruly tongues.
Maybe you’ve had the thought,
“Why in the world did I say that?” or
“Man, I wish I had just kept my mouth shut.”
And then you never want to go out in public ever again.
James wants you to know, as he says in verse 2, that we all stumble in many ways. Our tongues humble us because they reveal to us the depths of our sin and depravity. They reveal to us our need for a renewed and redeemed nature. Our self-righteous pride is shattered when we realize the ease in which our words betray us and we fall prey to gossip and slander and lies and deception and boasting and cursing and the like!
James goes on in verse 2 to say, “If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body.”
The implied follow-up question becomes: is it even possible for us to perfect our tongues or is he just speaking hypothetically here?
THE PERFECTION OF THE TONGUE?
Though James does not think that any human being can tame the tongue, he does seem to hold out perfection as a goal to be sought (Moo, pg.188). The standard doesn’t change even if attaining it is beyond our natural grasp. This is not meant to drive us into despair but to make us recognize our insufficiency and to point us to Christ.
Sinclair Ferguson writes,
“Nobody — Jesus excepted — has succeeded in mastering the tongue! Our only hope as we pursue the discipline of self that leads to mastery of the tongue is that we are Christ’s and that we are being made increasingly like him. But this battle for vocal holiness is a long-running one, and it needs to be waged incessantly, daily, hourly.”
Jesus is the only person who accurately fits the description of the perfect man James speaks of. He was tempted to sin with his tongue in every way that we have been tempted, and yet he is without sin (cf. Hebrews 4:15)—he never stumbled in what he said. Peter explains that,
“Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed”
—1 Peter 2:21-24
How do you strive to tame the tongue? You follow in the footsteps of Jesus. He did not obey with his tongue so that you could curse and slander and lie and revile with yours. He obeyed so that the sins of your tongue could be forgiven and that you might die to sin and live to righteousness.
James holds out the hope of perfection because those who have been united to Christ have his Spirit living inside of them. Naturally speaking, there is no hope for taming our tongues. But supernaturally, God is at work in us sanctifying our patterns of speech so that we might honor and glorify him.
God has the power to tame tongues.
He can take tongues that once blasphemed him and turn them into tongues that praise him.
He can take tongues that once boasted only in self and turn them into tongues that now humbly boast in their Savior.
He can take tongues that slandered and put down others and turn them into tongues that encourage and edify and build up.
He can take deceitful and lying tongues and turn them into courageous and truth-telling tongues.
And he can take tongues that set forests ablaze and turn them into gentle tongues that turn away wrath.
Trying to tame your tongue without Christ is like trying to read with your eyes closed. You can’t do it and it will only lead to frustration and despair. If you are going to fight this battle for vocal holiness incessantly, daily, and hourly, then you need to be united to Christ.
James provides us with warning after warning and illustration after illustration about the tongue, so that you might grow in wisdom, see your sin, and turn to Christ. In James chapter 3, you have access to the battle plans and schemes of the tongue. And only by rightly understanding the tongue can you strive to tame it with God’s help.
Are you trusting Christ this morning to overcome the sins of your tongue?
He went to the cross silently for you, so that your small tongue could be healed. So that the sins of your tongue could be forgiven and so that you could sing of the triumphs of his grace.