Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: James 3:1-12 | Date: October 24, 2021 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

Open your Bibles, please, to James chapter 3. We continue our series of studies through this epistle. And I have a strong suspicion that one of the reasons God gave us this book of the Bible is so that people will not say so often about preachers that they are not practical. If anything is practical, it’s this epistle of James. In fact, this passage is, and I choose my words carefully, painfully practical. Here he tells us about the proper use of the tongue, how we speak as Christians, and how the Christian should be marked by a certain kind of speech.

James chapter 3, verses 1 to 12:

“Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For we all stumble in many ways, and if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to bridle his whole body. If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. 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. 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! 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. 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. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.”

Let’s bow together for prayer. Our Father, we come to a subject here in your Word that we need. We need daily. We need this caution, this admonition, and we pray that we would hear it well for the glory of our Lord Jesus, we pray. Amen.

Well, as we’ve seen, James writes with the purpose of defining what Christian behavior should be like. He writes with a very practical purpose: that a Christian ought to be marked by a certain kind of behavior. And so we saw it first of all in chapter one with the matter of trials. Here’s how a Christian responds to trials. Later in chapter one, there’s how a Christian responds to temptation. His point in all of this is to say that this gospel has transforming effects in the one who believes. It renders us not only accepted before God in justification, but it also promises to transform us.

And so, one by one, he takes up these topics to tell us what Christian behavior is like. If we are indeed a people who have been transformed by the gospel, here’s how it will look in this situation. Here’s how it will look in that situation, and so on, and he picks up one topic after another. So in chapter one, there’s trials, and then there’s temptations. Then in chapter two, we saw how to respond to the Word of God, and he gives several particular applications to that: that we will not be too soon to speak, that we will not be soon angry, that we will have a heart for the needy, and so on. We saw also in chapter two that a transformed heart will not be snobbish and won’t show partiality based on external things that are irrelevant. And then we saw last time in chapter 2, the last half of the chapter—sort of the theological center of the Epistle of James—where he deals with this question of the relation of faith and works.

And he went to some pains there to tell us that a faith without works is dead. We are saved by, justified by faith alone. But the faith by which we are justified is not alone. It will show itself in the way that we live. It’s the center of James’ argument in the entire letter. Now in chapter 3, verses 1 to 12, he takes up another topic, but it’s a topic that he has mentioned before, and it’s a topic he will take up again in chapter 4, and that is the Christian use of the tongue and how we speak.

How should a Christian speak? How should he not speak? It’s kind of like—I’ve always thought of this passage kind of like the doctor. You go into the doctor’s office and he says, “Open your mouth and say ah,” and he looks in and somehow or other he’s able to look in there and tell a lot about you by what he sees in your mouth. It’s kind of like that here with James chapter 3, verses 1 to 12. “Show me what a man talks about, how he speaks, and I’ll tell you a lot about that man.” And that, in essence, is what James is after throughout this chapter.

Now, in essence, then, there’s nothing new about this. As I say, he’s mentioned it before, he’ll mention it again, but it’s something we find often in the Scriptures. In the book of Proverbs, this is a prominent topic that’s taken up by the sage: that you can tell by how a man speaks whether or not he is a wise man or if he’s a fool. We tell that by the way he speaks. Jesus tells us in Matthew chapter 12 that out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. What a man says reveals simply what’s on the inside. We saw in James 1, verse 26, “If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless.”

So again, it’s a matter of the test of our profession. It’s the gauge of our profession of faith in how we speak. Now we come to James 3 here, verses 1 to 12, and he expands it here now at more length. He’s mentioned it before, he’ll mention it again, but here is the passage where he deals with it at some length. In chapter 4, verses 11 and 12, he’ll deal with it in terms of speaking evil of one another, the sin of slander. We’ll get to that eventually, and that’ll be painfully practical as well. But this is James’ purpose in writing: show me your faith by your works, and now show me your faith by how you speak.

Now specifically, James seems to have in mind here some kind of bickering, infighting, and slandering going on among the people in the congregation. So he calls us, for instance, in chapter 1 to bridle our tongue. I don’t think the point there is just to hold your tongue and don’t cuss, although that’s certainly one good application of it. But I think specifically what he’s coming to here is: hold your tongue and don’t slander one another. Be careful what you say about one another. Be careful how you talk to one another. And that’s the point here, I think, in this passage. He talks about the destructive use of the tongue. In chapter 3, verse 9 here, the idea is gossip and slander. Chapter 4, in verse 1, he’s speaking of fighting and quarreling. Again in chapter 4, verses 11 and 12, the problem is slander and gossip.

So it’s the age-old problem that every church has seen to one degree or another, with one degree of a problem over it or another, and he’s warning us here that this is an indication of who we are as God’s people: how we talk, and what we don’t say. And if anything is evident about the gospel, it is that it transforms the whole person. And so now the tongue.

Not Many Of You Should Become Teachers

He begins here with a discussion warning us about those who talk—in one sense, those who talk the most. That’s teachers, those of us who teach and preach. At least publicly, we talk more than anyone else. This is the way we conduct our profession. We do it by talking.

And so he begins with verse one: “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.” So the job of the teacher, the job of the preacher, is to instruct others as to what the Word of God says and what the Word of God demands of us. And if we’re going to presume to take that responsibility on ourselves, this is just an extension of the principle that our Lord taught in Luke chapter 12: to whom much is given, much shall be required. If we take that responsibility ourselves, then we will be judged with the greater strictness.

So don’t all of you be eager to become a teacher. Stop and think about that. Teaching is a very important gift. Paul ranks it in the foundational kinds of gifts in his list of the gifts. If we don’t have teaching and preaching of the Word of God, where’s the rest of the church going to be? And James isn’t denying that it’s so important. He’s just saying here that it carries with it a great kind of responsibility.

Those who teach will be judged with greater strictness. If you presume to teach others, expect then that you will be judged by that standard by which you have taught others. And so for anybody who aspires to teach in the church, in chapter three, verses one and two, James says: pause, be careful, think about it, are you ready for this? Consider the seriousness and the implications of it.

Now in my generation years ago—I’m thinking back into the 60s and 70s in particular—it was common in churches for the pastors to push young men into the pastoral ministry, have altar calls, and say, “Raise your hand if you’re going to surrender your life to full-time Christian ministry.” And there’s something about that that’s commendable. But I rather think Martin Lloyd-Jones had a better approach to it. He said that when young men would come to him telling him that they were aspiring to a pastoral ministry, he would tell them not to, unless they just can’t do anything else.

I don’t mean they’re not able to do anything else, but their heart just won’t allow them to do anything else. Unless there’s just this inward compulsion that you can’t possibly think of doing anything else—which he took as some kind of an indication from God of gifting and putting in the service and calling—if you don’t have that, he says, don’t go. And I rather think that’s more in keeping with James here. Be careful before you step up to that responsibility. And implied in that, then, is that those of us who teach and preach are held to a bit of a higher standard. We should know better. So James says be careful before you jump into this business of teaching other people.

We All Stumble In Many Ways

Now next, James broadens the application in verse 2. He says, “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.” Now clearly here, the word “perfect”—don’t go overboard with that. He’s not saying that if you don’t sin with your tongue, you never sin in any other way. He’s not talking about sinless perfectionism, obviously, but he’s saying here’s a man who’s mature. Here’s a Christian, in one sense, who has arrived. He’s a stable, mature Christian. If you can bridle your tongue, that’s an indicator of some real degree of spiritual maturity.

Now, what he’s making then is this positive point: that this is a kind of ultimate test. Show me a person who can control his tongue, and I’ll show you a person who’s got it all put together. This is a real litmus test. If you can control your tongue, well, there’s a man who can probably control everything else about him. So here’s an indicator of spiritual health: a life that’s truly transformed. Now, this is not a sufficient test. There have to be other tests as well, and James wouldn’t deny that. In fact, the whole epistle is given to give us a series of tests. But this one is a really telling test.

Now, it’s interesting that this would be such a telling test—no pun intended—such an important test. Our tongue saying everything about us. It’s interesting because, as he says in the next verses, the tongue is just a small part of the body. That’s verses three to five. “If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. Look at the ships also. 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. So also the tongue is a small member, and yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire.”

So, verse three: your tongue is like a bit in the horse’s mouth. It’s small, but it directs the whole horse. It’s just a small piece of steel. Four inches, I think, is what it is for a bit. You put it in the horse’s mouth, and now you’ve got control of the whole beast. Now it’s important because, well, you don’t put the bit on his tail; you put it in his mouth. And I wonder if that’s part of his thinking here, that you control the horse’s mouth, you control the whole horse. And here it is: if you can control your mouth, you control the whole body. And I think that’s what’s going on here. Bridle the tongue and you have now mastered the whole body.

So verse four, another illustration: take the rudder of a ship. Again, it’s just a small thing. Now if it’s a big ship, the rudder might be of considerable size, but comparatively it’s a small thing. And yet with all of the strong winds blowing the ship—so picture the ship with the masts up, catching the wind and blowing it—huge ship, strong winds, and you’ve got a little rudder down there telling the ship where to go. An amazing thing. And so also, he says, is the tongue. It’s a small member of the body, but boy, it tells everything about us. So the difference between a wild horse and a tame horse is a bit in the mouth. And the difference between a ship on course and a ship off course is a rudder. And so also then the mark of a mature Christian, one who’s really been transformed by the Word of God, is a controlled tongue.

The Tongue Is A Fire

Well, then James gives us some more illustrations of it in verses five and six. “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. The tongue is a fire and 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.”

Strong language. Even a small spark can set ablaze an entire forest. We’ve seen that in recent years, haven’t we, with some of the forest fires out west. A cigarette butt thrown out, or a small campfire out of control. Small fire, entire mountainside ablaze. Just a little fire, and yet look what it can do. Your tongue, he is saying here, is like that. It’s a small part of the body, but look at the damage it can do, and look how much power it has.

So what does that mean? Well, it means something like one word of gossip, one lie, one little innuendo, and a person’s life is just set ablaze. One dirty remark, one remark questioning the person’s integrity or his motives to another person. And now every time that person talks to or thinks of that other person, it’s with suspicion. One revealing of a secret that you shouldn’t have revealed. The person’s life is ruined with the community. He’s a member of the church, he’s in good standing, and one little innuendo passed along, and then passed along to someone else, and then passed along to someone else. His whole standing in the congregation is ruined, and relationships can be ruined, and fights can happen, and churches can split, and just a little fire sets ablaze the whole mountainside. That’s his point here. It’s really very graphic. This is such an evil thing, he says. In fact, and he uses this strong language, it’s just a hellish thing. It’s set on fire by hell.

Now, the Bible does not give us, I don’t think, precise definitions of what a sinful gossip is. I don’t think it matters because I think we all recognize when we cross the line. Slandering, sowing discord—there are some guiding principles that the Scriptures give us in this, though, and how we should talk about others to other people. And I think we can sum it up in three words: Is it true? Is it kind? And is it necessary?

I think it’s just been a helpful little thing to remember. When you’re about to talk about someone else to someone else, ask yourself, “Is this true?” Do you know it’s true? Are you slanting the truth a little? Giving a spin on the truth? Is it true? Number two, “Is it kind?” Is it going to help him? Can it help his standing with the person who hears you talk about him? Is it true? Is it kind? And then third, even if it’s not helpful in the sense of helping him, you’ve got to ask a third one: “Is it necessary?” Is it necessary that I reveal this?

Now there are times when it is necessary. We have an example of that in 1 Corinthians. Paul writes to the church at Corinth with all of their trouble of division in the church and fighting. You remember how he knows about it? It’s not because he was there—I mean, he had been there, but that’s not how he knows about this problem. How he knows about it is because people were sent from Chloe. Chloe sent some people, the messengers, to Paul to tell him about the problems in the church. And Chloe’s not faulted for what she did. She went to the person who could deal with the problem, part of the solution to the thing.

Pastor Boyd gave us, I think, a wonderful example of that this morning. Some of us were talking about it afterwards, that this matter of standing for the truth in a local congregation. And we mentioned that one of the virtues of a good person, obviously, is he doesn’t want to have a quarrel. He doesn’t want to have a fight. He doesn’t want to have trouble. He wants to have peace. There are times in the congregation when you’ve got to be able to speak up, and more important things are at stake, and so you have to speak up, and there has to be a rebuke, and so on. So there are times when all of that, when if it’s not kind in that sense, it’s still necessary, if it’s true.

But of course that’s not what James is talking about. What James is talking about is slander that is given that didn’t need to be said. What we say about others must be true. What we say of others must be kind. And then, if what we have to say about others is potentially harmful for them, we should pause and we should consider, is it really needed? Is it necessary that I say this? Is the person who’s going to hear it part of the problem? Is the person who’s going to hear it part of the solution to the problem? Do I need to say it?

Well, I think there’s more to say about that, of course, but I think we understand the point that when James talks here about this tongue, a little member setting ablaze a whole forest of fire, we get the point. Sinful gossip should never occur. Proverbs gives us a lot of instruction about this, and I’ll just read—well, if you’d like, you can follow along in some of these Proverbs. Look at Proverbs 11, verse 13. Let’s just run through four or five Proverbs here about speaking.

Proverbs 11, verse 13: “Whoever goes about slandering reveals secrets, but he who is trustworthy in spirit keeps a thing covered.” So one way of sinful gossip is betraying a trust, saying something that might be true, but precisely because it’s true, it’s damning. Don’t do it. Don’t betray a confidence.

Chapter 16, Proverbs 16, verse 28: “A dishonest man spreads strife, and a whisperer separates close friends.” Here he’s emphasizing the sad effects of slander and of gossip, revealing something that shouldn’t be revealed, and it just stirs up trouble.

Chapter 17, over a page. 17 verse 9: “Whoever covers an offense seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates close friends.” So you share with someone some information about someone else that ought to have been kept—you ought to have kept hidden—and all it does is stir up strife. And you know how this goes. “Well, I need to talk to you because I’m concerned, and I want you to pray for so-and-so.” And there are all kinds of pious ways we can frame it, but that kind of gossip betrays a friendship, it exposes what ought to have been kept secret, and it’s got no place.

Chapter 18, verse 8: “The words of a whisperer are like delicious morsels.” Yeah, let me tell you, this one, it’s just juicy, and you can’t wait to tell it because it’s so juicy. “Words of a whisperer are like delicious morsels; they go down into the inner parts of the body.” So line one here in Proverbs 18:8: The word of gossip is juicy, it’s attractive. Then line two: it sinks in. It’s not forgotten. It sinks into the inner parts of the body and the damage done is permanent. That’s the idea.

Chapter 26, verse 20: “For lack of wood, the fire goes out, and where there is no whisperer, quarreling ceases.” Or the New International Version, if you have that: “Without wood, a fire goes out; without gossip, a quarrel dies down.” Again, he’s talking about the ill effects of gossip. There’s nothing good accomplished by it. And if you keep your mouth closed, there won’t be trouble. But if you open your mouth and you spread the thing, all we’ve got is trouble from it. And so a wise man in Proverbs is one who does not gossip. He guards his tongue and he protects his friend.

Now it’s obviously a terrible thing for a Christian then ever to speak disparagingly of another believer in the church, unless you just have to. There are times in discipline, there are times of rebuke, and there are times of false teaching, and yeah, yeah, yeah, but that obviously is not what James is on here. Otherwise, it just must be always an awful thing for a Christian to speak disparagingly of another brother or sister.

Now, I think two things here are appropriate for me to say at this point in the context of RBC. Number one, I am really genuinely thankful that this is not a prominent problem at RBC. I can’t say that in a lot of churches. This just, as far as I can tell, people of RBC have been wonderful in this score. This has not been a big problem. Number two, there’s not a one of us that doesn’t need this exhortation. That drive—I don’t know, well I do know what it is—that drive to say something about someone else that cuts him off at the knees and now I stand taller at the end of the conversation is just such an evil thing. And there’s not a one of us that doesn’t need this exhortation.

No Human Being Can Tame The Tongue

Now verses seven and eight. James illustrates now the danger of gossip. “For every kind of beast and bird and reptiles and sea creatures 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.”

For all the remarkable accomplishments of mankind, king of creation—for all of our remarkable accomplishments, we’ve tamed animals, we’ve, man, we’ve flown to the moon, we’ve got remarkable accomplishments. We can do it all. Yet, who can tame the tongue? That’s the tough one. And in fact, he speaks of it here in terms of impossibility. No one can tame the tongue.

Now, I don’t think he’s saying here that it’s absolutely untamable. I think what he’s saying here is that it’s humanly untamable. And the implication is the theme of the book: and that is that a man or a woman who’s transformed by the gospel, that person can tame his tongue, because God can do that. The transforming work of the Spirit in us can do that. But he’s stressing here that that is a mark of one who’s been transformed by the gospel. He can tame the tongue.

Now, the reason the tongue is so untamable, he tells us—and Jesus talks about this several times. The reason the tongue is so untamable is because it’s a revelation of the heart. That’s why I caught myself a minute ago. I don’t know what it is—I do know what it is about us. It’s an evil heart. It’s a heart bent on sin, and we’ve received the new birth. We’ve been made new, and there’s been a real restructuring of who we are, and yet sin remains, and we struggle against it. It still has a degree of pollution in us, and it affects the way we talk. What comes out of the mouth reveals what’s on the inside. And James here throughout this letter is pressing us with the transforming effects of the gospel.

These Things Ought Not To Be So

And then finally in verses 9 and 10, he illustrates the evil. And this is just a devastating passage here. He illustrates the evil of our inconsistent use of the tongue. Verse 9: “With it we bless our Lord and Father and with it we curse people made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.”

It’s amazing how the tongue can make us look like two very different people. Come to church on Sunday morning, we stand behind a hymnal and sing wonderful truth. We sing praise to God. And then we turn around afterwards and we spread a little gossip and damage someone else made in the likeness of God—worse yet, a fellow believer. And it’s just amazing how the tongue can make us look so good and then make us look so bad. Same tongue, same mouth, two very different uses of it. We worship God with it and we curse our brother with it and damage him. Verse 10, my brothers, this just not, ought not to be. There’s simply no excusing of it.

And so verses 11 and 12, James again presses that our use of the tongue reveals the state of our heart. “Does a spring pour forth from the same opening, both fresh and saltwater? No. Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives? No. Can a grapevine produce figs? No. Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.” So when we speak evil of our brother, we reveal the evil in our heart. And our words, in this case, say more about us than it did about the person we’re talking about. It reveals something about us, which brings us back to the very point of James’ letter: that if we are men and women who have been genuinely transformed by the gospel, it has to inform and shape the way we speak of one another.

Throughout the letter, as we’ve seen, James presses us with one demand of Christian living after another, and this one is just a vitally important one, and it is the telling test of who we are. And I was thinking about this as I was preparing, and how do we respond to a passage like this? How ought we respond to this? And I’ve got three things that I’ll mention.

Number one, first of all, obviously, we must repent of the ways that we have sinned with our tongue. There’s just no other way of saying it. We must repent of the ways that we have sinned with our tongue. Repent before God, repent perhaps to others against whom we have sinned with our tongue, but that has to be number one. How do we respond to a passage like this? Number one, repent of the sinful ways that we’ve used our tongue.

Number two, repair, as far as we are able, any damage that we have done to others with our tongue. That becomes our responsibility: not only to repent, but to repair the damage done. One time a man—I was in a church, and there was this thing floating around about what Pastor Fred said, and what Pastor Fred said, and what he wants, and where in the world did this come from? And finally I narrowed it down, and so I went to the man, invited him to lunch, and said, “Hey, I hear that you’ve said thus and such.” Anyway, to his credit, he repented of it. And then he even asked, “What can I do?” And I said, “Well, you can go to every person that you’ve talked to and straighten it out. And then you can go to the people they’ve talked to and straighten it out.” And of course you can’t find them all. But to his credit, he did go to some and I was glad for that. But that’s the responsibility we have. Repent of it as far as we’re able. Repair the damage that we’ve done with our tongue. I don’t think it is real repentance unless we do that.

So three R’s: repent, repair, and then number three, resolve that from here forward, we will not sin with our tongues. I’ll never speak to harm my brother or my sister, but I’ll always speak in such a way that reflects the reality that he or she and I, we are brothers and sisters in Christ transformed by the gospel. If it doesn’t work here, it just doesn’t work. That’s what James has to tell us. Painfully, painfully practical passage of Scripture. As I say, I am genuinely thankful that this is not a big problem for us at RBC. I just don’t see it. But as I say, there’s not one of us that doesn’t need this reminder.

Let’s bow together and be dismissed in prayer. Our Father, this portion of your Word hits hard, it digs deep, and there’s not a one of us who hasn’t struggled with it. We pray that you will forgive us for the way that we have sinned with our tongue. Forgive us for the lack of love and concern for our brothers and sisters when we’ve spoken ill of them. We pray that you would forgive us of our sin. We pray that you would finish your transforming work in us. We are thankful for the sweet fellowship we have here at RBC. This is such a wonderful evidence of the Spirit of God at work among us. We thank you for it. Father, we pray that you’ll preserve it. One of the means we ask that you will preserve it is by controlling our tongues, gaining more control of us, that our tongues will be used only in ways that please you. We pray in Jesus’ name, amen.