THE UNTAMED TONGUE
Some people love to give advice - even if no-one wants to hear it. They go about teaching and advising, and criticizing, as if they have been appointed to do this. James warns these self-appointed people that God will judge them "by a higher standard" than other Christians. He says God's judgement will be "severe", so they'd better watch out!
But then James moves on to
the general subject of
words, and what we use them for, and the
power of words.
To illustrate
his point
James uses
three illustrations.
He talks about:
A small BIT in a horse's mouth can turn a horse,
A small RUDDER can turn a ship,
A small FLAME can start a forest fire,
and a small TONGUE can start a war!
When James uses the word
"tongue", he really means "the
human heart." The tongue is just
a tool which the heart uses to express itself. James tells us that the sinful human heart is: "a fire, a world of iniquity, a defiler, an instrument of hell, an untamable, wild thing, an unruly evil, full of deadly poison, a source of cursing and a spring of bitterness . . ."
James tells us these ugly truths because he wants us to be aware of how fallible and weak we all are. He includes himself. If this is so, how urgently do we need the inner power of the Holy Spirit to help us overcome the sinful bias of our nature!
See 2 Corinthians 10:5
This is why James tells us to be "swift to hear, but slow to speak"
(1:19) and this is why we are told to move out of the sinful lifestyle
and to allow the "fruit of the Spirit" into our lives Galatians 5:22
etc.
