The Power of Words (Part 2)
a commentary on James 3 (Interpretation)
Thank you, Lord, for this day. May it be used for your glory!
Good morning everyone and welcome back to this week’s Biblit part 2!
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As a reminder of where we are at, this week we’re talking about the power of the tongue and the power of wisdom.
We will discuss these a bit more in-depth today and maybe talk about how they are interconnected.
Let’s jump in!
Interpretation
As I said before, James gets a lot of his motivation from the greatest teacher: Jesus.
This passage from Jesus in particular some say could have inspired our talk on the tongue.
I believe it also does a wonderful job of summarizing our talk on wisdom too.
“A good tree doesn’t produce bad fruit; on the other hand, a bad tree doesn’t produce good fruit. For each tree is known by its own fruit. Figs aren’t gathered from thornbushes, or grapes picked from a bramble bush. A good person produces good out of the good stored up in his heart. An evil person produces evil out of the evil stored up in his heart, for his mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart.” (Luke 6:43-45 CSB).
I believe the point Jesus is making here is that our fruit is not the problem. The type of fruit a tree bears is indicative of the type of roots underneath.
Let’s see how this relates to our two topics today.
The Power of The Tongue
James made 2 main points I want to highlight here.
The first was just how powerful words can be. They have the power to inspire entire nations to great endeavors like going to space or inspire some of the most dreadful evil acts in human history like the Holocaust.
Words can talk someone down from a ledge, but they can be the exact same thing that put someone on the ledge in the first place.
I think it’s ironic James talks about the power of words just 1 chapter after he told us faith without action is worthless.
After that chapter, we might be left thinking action is the key.
But now he talks about how powerful words are too. I would argue that talking is a form of action and talking in a way that honors God is an action produced by faith.
This leads us to James’s second point: with this powerful tongue of ours we try to honor God and curse our neighbor at the same time.
James tells us this is contradicting and cannot be allowed.
I believe if we talk about these two points in light of his inspiration from Jesus’s words, they go hand in hand and flow incredibly well from our discussion of faith-based action last week.
Jesus and James are trying to tell us that when our words tear down, start fires, curse our neighbor, or do any despicable act, the issue is not the words themselves.
The issue is the heart.
Jesus is saying that if having evil speech is the fruit, that is just coming from the heart. The heart can only be cleansed by faith in Christ.
And so just like last week, James is saying that our words are an extremely powerful action. A powerful action that MUST be fueled by faith in Jesus Christ.
Which, once again, actually segues great into our discussion on wisdom.
The Power of Wisdom
When I read this section on wisdom, I thought James was making an interesting claim I never thought of before.
It seems like he’s saying our works/actions are not only fueled by faith but also fueled by wisdom.
He is making a claim that there is a major connection between our source of wisdom and the works we do.
And just like with the tongue, I believe this goes well with Jesus’s words too.
James told us that works produced by worldly wisdom are envy and selfish ambition. And that they lead to disorder and evil practices.
Going with Jesus’s words, James is saying when we allow worldly wisdom to infiltrate our hearts, it interferes with our faith in God.
We start to put faith in things of this world like money, power, career, etc. When our faith is in those things then we fall into many evil traps. As Paul says in 1 Timothy:
“But those who want to be rich fall into temptation, a trap, and many foolish and harmful desires, which plunge people into ruin and destruction.” (1 Timothy 6:9 CSB).
When our faith is tied to money, power, career, and things of this world it is so easy to compare ourselves to others (especially with social media), which breeds all sorts of envy and covetousness.
This either depresses us or typically inspires us with selfish ambition to earn more, seek more, and do more for ourselves.
Those aren’t wrong on their own; the keyword above is “selfish.”
Trying to work harder and earn more isn’t bad. But if it’s out of a selfish ambition because you’ve allowed worldly wisdom to infiltrate your heart, then James is saying this is sinful.
Again, James says when we seek our wisdom from God and only allow His wisdom in our hearts, our actions will be pure, peace-loving, gentle, compliant, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, and without pretense.
With that, we’ll call it a day! Tune in tomorrow and we’ll talk about some application points from James chapter 3!
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