Search This Blog

Saturday, August 18, 2012

What Springs From You James 3:1-12


With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. James 3:9-10

Growing up in Orlando, my dad’s company had a yearly picnic at Altamonte Springs.  Hundreds of men, women, and children assembled under the huge pavilion rented for the Bendex Corporation.  While the adults spent most of the time there, down the road was the object of a kid’s desire: the springs.  The water came from an underground aquifer and the temperature was a brisk 60 plus degrees.  On the sunny Orlando days, sliding down the water slide and landing in the cold water was so refreshing.  It was something to dream about year after year. 

James begins the discussion by addressing first those people of the church who had great influence and their speech could cause others to stumble.  In addressing those teachers to the church, he reminded them they face a stricter judgment.  While he does use the word for judgment, it is not the one which speaks of God’s final judgment.  It was understood God holds those who teach falsely leading others astray responsible and here James includes the rest of the congregation.   While some had sought the position within the church, his warning suggests their desire to teach had other motives than teaching the accepted teaching of Christ and the Apostles.  

There were Jewish Christians teaching believers had to be circumcised and follow the Mosaic Law in addition to following Christ.  There were others who believed such false teaching which denied the virgin birth, or the full humanity of Jesus.  They believed flesh was sinful and evil; God could not be flesh.  So the speech of these teachers was leading others to stumble.  James tells us that we all have a moral failure in one way or the other. He tells the church if such a person could be found who bridled the tongue; he would be complete or perfect controlling the rest of his body.   We can remember is James 1:19 he warned the believers to be quick to listen and slow to speak and slow to anger. 
James discusses the effectiveness of the uncontrolled tongue.  Once untamed horses are trained to the bit, it will follow the direction of the rider as he pulls on the bit.  In the times of the Bible, there were large ships carrying a 1,000 passengers and cargo.  Even these large ships would still be tossed about by the fierce storms, such as the one which shipwrecked Paul.  In the face of such fierce storms, the small rudder at the rear of the ship set the course.  While you could not see the wind, it was effective and destructive.  Likewise the tongue, a small member of the human body and can be deadly. This tongue makes great boasts—not the individual.  The boasts are lofty of the individual’s abilities and means to “lift up the neck”.  The tongue is seen as a fire which starts so small and yet it kindles up and destroys anything in its path. The tongue is established as a world of evil—injustice, wickedness, and wrong-doing.  In this world, the tongue then defiles the rest of the body by its actions.  The tongue in the Old Testament is deceitful, the seat of sinning, mischief and vanity.

It is in the book of Psalms we start to see the relationship of the tongue to the inner nature of man.  The unbridled tongue sets the course of one’s life.  It is set afire by Gehenna, which from the history of Israel held much shame. Here children were sacrificed to pagan gods and was declare declared unclean.  Jesus used this place, which now was the city of Jerusalem’s garbage dump which continually burned to refuse from the city, as a reference for the eternal fires of hell.  This tongue of hell cannot be restrained.  It is an evil which is full of poison—like that of a viper.  It destroyed the victim from the inside out—bringing death. 
The last example seemingly is the most destructive—both to the offender/and the offended.  James begins describing the speech within the church.  He calls them brothers and speaks of the idea of praising God and cursing man.  The words he used describe action which is ongoing in his own church.  What the tongue is doing in the church is causing the destruction of other Christians. The highest use of the tongue is in the proclamation, adoration, and glorifying of God and Father.  James usage of the term God and Father may make the following part of the sentence even more destructive because not only has mankind been made in the image of God, but fellow worshipers are reborn in the image of God by faith in Christ.
As Jesus taught, what comes out of the mouth is a measure of the heart, James reminds these brothers the double tongued speech of praising God and cursing of brothers is wrong and must be stopped. The metaphor he used describes completely the speech which praises God and curses man—it is bitter.  Salt water added to sweet water makes the sweet water unusable; just as worship of praise for God mixed with the abuses to his creation makes worship-speech unusable.
Application
Stumbling Speech  But if you bite and devour each other, be careful that you don’t get eaten up by each other! Galatians 5:15  In a book recently given to me, Three Simple Rules, A Wesleyan Way of Life, by Rueben P. Job, he describes the first rule, DO NO HARM!  In choosing to do no harm, my speech will not cause a brother or sister to stumble.
Pausing and thinking before I speak and take the time to discern what if anything should be said.
a.       Honor the other person as a child of God and not harm them with my speech.
b.      End gossip/speak harshly about someone I may have a conflict with.
Deadly Speech   Do you love life; do you relish the chance to enjoy good things? Then you must keep your tongue from evil and keep your lips from speaking lies! Turn away from evil! Do good! Seek peace and go after it! Psalm 34:12-14
The next step in knowing what springs from you is to take an active stance against deadly speech.
a.       Speaking falsely can happen in two ways: one is the intentional lie and the other is not completely honest with the facts.
b.      Take the action to literally turn away from evil and to do good. 
c.       Do whatever is needed to maintain peace.
Destructive Speech  Without wood a fire goes out; without a gossip a quarrel dies down.  As charcoal to embers and as wood to fire, so is a quarrelsome person for kindling strife. The words of a gossip are like choice morsels; they go down to the inmost parts.  
Proverbs 26:20-22

I will seek to live in peace with my brother or sister who has been made in image of God.
a.  I choose to stop the continuation of a matter by not being the means of transmission.
b.  I choose to stop being the kindling which creates a fire which destroys.
 

No comments:

Post a Comment