Bible Commentaries
James 3

Verses 1-2

Opposition Between God’s Word and Man’s Word (3:1-18)

Man’s Need of Controlling His Word (3:1-2)

The Christian’s works must measure up at every point. There is one member of a man’s body which has a vastly important part to play in the activity of "the whole body," namely, his tongue. So far is this true that "if any one makes no mistakes in what he says he is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body also." Control of the tongue is, in other words, the true mark of maturity in the Christian. It is only such persons who should undertake to become teachers, for the teacher is one who is "judged with greater strictness" regarding what he says.

Verses 3-4

Examples of Small Controllers (3:3-4)

The reader is not to look askance at the tongue because it is so small a member. Size has nothing to do with significance here. Two comparable examples are offered from other fields of human interest. These are the bits which are placed in the mouths of horses (vs. 3), and the very small rudder used in guiding a ship (vs. 4). In each case, the "whole bodies" of the horses and the whole ship are properly directed and controlled.

Verses 5-12

The Tongue — a Small Uncontrolled Controller (3:5-12)

Similarly, "the tongue is a little member" and, if the analogy held, it should be capable of controlling for good man’s whole body. Instead, there is present here a factor which is absent in the cases of bits and rudder just cited. This factor, though James does not here employ the term, is sin. Man can tame everything else with which he has to do — beast, bird, reptile, sea creature, but not the tongue; it is "a restless evil, full of deadly poison," "a fire," "an unrighteous world among our members." The tongue, instead of controlling for good, succeeds only in "staining the whole body." Being itself "set on fire by hell," it kindles the entire "cycle of nature," the cycle of man’s whole existence from morning to night.

James is particularly impressed by the tongue’s double-dealing, its "blessing and cursing" at the same time, the blessing being for God, the cursing for men.

The implication of the passage is that the same attitude of respect and love must be maintained both for God and for "men, who are made in the likeness of God." This is the equivalent of Jesus’ teaching relative to the only two necessary commandments; the command to love one’s fellow men is placed on a par with loving God (Mark 12:31-33). Throughout this section, moreover, there are subtle reminiscences of the Sermon on the Mount. The question emerges here, therefore, as to whether James may not have had available the teaching of Jesus in some oral-tradition form. Obviously, he is not merely quoting from one of our canonical Gospels.

The phrase "the Lord and Father" in verse 9 has no exact equivalent in Scripture. The nearest to it is perhaps Paul’s favorite phrase, "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 15:6; 2 Corinthians 1:3; Ephesians 1:3).

Verses 13-18

Wisdom from Above (3:13-18)

Like the Old Testament and apocryphal "wisdom literature," James now traces both the tongue, and the word which it utters, back to two possible sources, to each of which he gives the general name of "wisdom." One of these sources is "the wisdom from above," the other in origin and nature is "earthly, unspiritual, devilish." James has already shown that the first of these is not natural to man but is to be acquired only from "God, who gives to all men generously and without reproaching" (1:5). Obviously, then, to James’ mind such wisdom is to be identified with God’s word, "the word of truth" (1:18), which we have seen to be the mediating cause of man’s salvation (1:21). This divine wisdom James describes in remarkable fashion in terms of its effects — it is "first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, without uncertainty or insincerity" (vs. 17), a description obviously motivated by James’ endeavor to paint in vivid colors a picture contrasting sharply with what passes for wisdom among false teachers. The true teacher, infused with this divine wisdom, will "show his works in the meekness of wisdom," that is, in a sort of divinely instilled humility which will never prove "false to the truth" which he professes.

By contrast, the opposite kind of wisdom — which, since James feels impelled to write about it, must have already appeared in the Christian community — springs out of man’s selfish nature. It manifests itself in "jealousy and selfish ambition" (vss. 14, 16), not in the wish to set forth God’s truth but rather in an attempt to acquire a sort of personal comer on truth. In the end, this results in a man’s being actually "false to the truth," as he boasts of his own relation to it. Among such teachers the net product is naturally "disorder and every vile practice." This section on the conflict between the two words is closed with what again sounds like a reference to the oral tradition of Jesus’ teachings — "the harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace" (vs. 18; see Matthew 5:9-10). That is to say, the righteousness which God expects of man is achieved only by those who exercise the divine wisdom in humility and peace, never by those who exalt their own wisdom and so achieve nothing but disorder.