Read with Me
James 3:9-12 (HCSB)
We praise our Lord and Father with it, and we curse men who are made in God’s likeness with it. Praising and cursing come out of the same mouth. My brothers, these things should not be this way. Does a spring pour out sweet and bitter water from the same opening? 12 Can a fig tree produce olives, my brothers, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a saltwater spring yield fresh water.
Listen with Me
James continues his discourse on the tongue by pointing to a conundrum. People, even Christians, were double-tongued, using their God-designed, God-given power of speech to sing praises to our Lord and Father, but the next minute using that same divine gift to curse our fellow men who are made in God’s image.
James sees in that a logical inconsistency. How is it possible for God’s people to use a gift He has given to both praise His name, and to tear down others that God loves? He sees this as being as logically inconsistent as fresh water and saltwater issuing from the same spring, or as a fig tree bearing olives or a grapevine producing figs.
As logically inconsistent as this is, some might argue that it is possible for a spring to be fed from both a saltwater aquifer and a freshwater aquifer. But if that happens, the fresh water is instantly fouled by the salt water and is no longer fresh. This is actually a good analog for James’ point for his readers, which is that the salty criticism and verbal tearing down of others so corrupts the outflow of their mouths, that it taints the freshwater praise they offer to God, making that praise unpalatable to Him, and unable to be received.
But James is addressing a larger issue than merely watching what we say. His primary concern is the hearts of his readers, realizing that the harsh words demonstrate a twisted heart. Matthew captured this truth and a warning from the lips of Jesus in Matthew 12: 33-37:
“Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for a tree is known by its fruit. Brood of vipers! How can you speak good things when you are evil? For the mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart. A good man produces good things from his storeroom of good, and an evil man produces evil things from his storeroom of evil. I tell you that on the day of judgment people will have to account for every careless word they speak. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.”
It was his concern that these harsh-tongued people would have to face God on the day of judgment with the hard and dark hearts that their hard and dark speech betrayed that drove him to write these words so directly. His goal was not reform, but repentance.
Pray with Me
Father, how easy it is to catch ourselves being harsh, or being called on it, and responding with either defensiveness or determination to try to do better in the future. Both these responses missed the point that the true source of that kind of critical and discouraging speech is a bad heart that doesn’t need reformation, but transformation. And that transformation can only come through admission, genuine repentance, and allowing the Holy Spirit free reign to change us from the inside out. Lord, help me to never try to change on my own what can only be transformed by You. Amen.