#DailyDevotion The Tongue Is A Fire
James 3:1–8 Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow Christians, because you know we who teach will be judged more severely. 2All of us sin much. If anyone doesn’t sin in what he says, he’s a perfect man who can control his whole body. 3If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we direct their whole bodies. 4Look at the ships — so big and driven by strong winds; but a very small rudder steers a ship anywhere the pilot wants it to go. 5So the tongue is a small organ but can boast of big things. You know how just a spark will set a large forest on fire. 6The tongue is a fire, a world of wrong! Set among the parts of our body, the tongue soils the whole body and inflames the course of life as it gets its fire from hell. 7A human being can tame and has tamed all kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, and creatures in the sea. 8But no one can tame the tongue — a restless evil, full of deadly poison.
Well there’s not a whole lot of gospel in this reading from James. Well it should be read like other wisdom literature such as Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. But just because there is no gospel here doesn’t mean it is worthless. It is here to teach you something from the LORD. After all there are two teaching from the LORD in the Bible, Law and Gospel. Both are good, true and salutary.
We have out of the blue the warning about becoming teachers in the Church and then it seems he drops the subject. However, what do teacher do? They teach with their tongues. More on that in a minute. We who teach will be judged all the more severely. When we teach in the Church we are speaking the Word of the Lord or we are not. If we are that is commendable and we will receive our reward from our LORD Jesus Christ. If we are speaking men’s words, we will be judged harshly and even that which have may be taken away from us as the LORD Jesus said in Revelation 21, 18“I warn everyone who hears what the prophecy of this book tells him: If you add anything to this, God will add to you the plagues written in this book. 19And if you take away any words in this book of prophecy, God will take away your share in the tree of life and in the holy city that are described in this book.”
So the teacher teaches with his tongue. We who teach should pray all the more the Holy Spirit helps us to tame our tongue and make it an instrument of God’s peace. James says if we can tame the tongue we can control the whole body. In today’s internet age he may have said if we can control our keyboard we can control the whole body. “We all sin much.” We sin all the more with our tongue unfortunately and with our keyboard strokes. Our tongue it appears to control our body and sets it on paths of unrighteousness. It is like a spark in a dry forest. It gets it power to destroy from hell. Yet the mouth only speaks what is on the heart or in the believer the sinful flesh.
James says no one can tame the tongue or perhaps even their keyboard. Wretched men, what will we do? We must turn to the LORD Jesus Christ and pray he give us his Holy Spirit. We should use our tongue to pray for self-control, one of the fruits of the Spirit. Jesus died to free us from sin. So we should daily pray for the Holy Spirit to use our tongue and our keyboards in service to Him.
Heavenly Father, give us your Holy Spirit so all we say and type glorifies Jesus Christ in all we do and forgive us for Christ’s sake when we don’t. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.