James 3
When You Open Your Mouth
1-2 Don't be in any rush to become a teacher, my friends. Teaching is highly responsible work. Teachers are held to the strictest standards. And none of us is perfectly qualified. We get it wrong nearly every time we open our mouths. If you could find someone whose speech was perfectly true, you'd have a perfect person, in perfect control of life.
3-5 A bit in the mouth of a horse controls the whole horse. A small rudder on a huge ship in the hands of a skilled captain sets a course in the face of the strongest winds. A word out of your mouth may seem of no account, but it can accomplish nearly anything—or destroy it!
6 It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire. A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell.
7-10 This is scary: You can tame a tiger, but you can't tame a tongue—it's never been done. The tongue runs wild, a wanton killer. With our tongues we bless God our Father; with the same tongues we curse the very men and women he made in his image. Curses and blessings out of the same mouth!
11-12 My friends, this can't go on. A spring doesn't gush fresh water one day and brackish the next, does it? Apple trees don't bear strawberries, do they? Raspberry bushes don't bear apples, do they? You're not going to dip into a polluted mud hole and get a cup of clear, cool water, are you?
Live Well, Live Wisely
13-16 Do you want to be counted wise, to build a reputation for wisdom? Here's what you do: Live well, live wisely, live humbly. It's the way you live, not the way you talk, that counts. Mean-spirited ambition isn't wisdom. Boasting that you are wise isn't wisdom. Twisting the truth to make yourselves sound wise isn't wisdom. It's the furthest thing from wisdom—it's animal cunning, devilish conniving. Whenever you're trying to look better than others or get the better of others, things fall apart and everyone ends up at the others' throats.
17-18 Real wisdom, God's wisdom, begins with a holy life and is characterized by getting along with others. It is gentle and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings, not hot one day and cold the next, not two-faced. You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor.
James 3
1 Be not many of you teachers, my brethren, knowing that we shall receive heavier judgment.2 For in many things we all stumble. If any stumbleth not in word, the same is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body also.3 Now if we put the horses’ bridles into their mouths that they may obey us, we turn about their whole body also.4 Behold, the ships also, though they are so great and are driven by rough winds, are yet turned about by a very small rudder, whither the impulse of the steersman willeth.5 So the tongue also is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how much wood is kindled by how small a fire!6 And the tongue is a fire: the world of iniquity among our members is the tongue, which defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the wheel of nature, and is set on fire by hell.7 For every kind of beasts and birds, of creeping things and things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed by mankind.8 But the tongue can no man tame; it is a restless evil, it is full of deadly poison.9 Therewith bless we the Lord and Father; and therewith curse we men, who are made after the likeness of God:10 out of the same mouth cometh forth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be.11 Doth the fountain send forth from the same opening sweet water and bitter?12 Can a fig tree, my brethren, yield olives, or a vine figs? Neither can salt water yield sweet.13 Who is wise and understanding among you? let him show by his good life his works in meekness of wisdom.14 But if ye have bitter jealousy and faction in your heart, glory not and lie not against the truth.15 This wisdom is not a wisdom that cometh down from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.16 For where jealousy and faction are, there is confusion and every vile deed.17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without variance, without hypocrisy.18 And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace for them that make peace.