James 3:7-8 For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and has been tamed of mankind:… The intense practicalness of James as a religious teacher leads him directly to this topic of the taming of the tongue. Here he sees, what every man to whom behaviour is a chief concern must see, one of the pivotal points of character. The religion that does not rule the speech is a failure and a fraud. The tongue, in the figure of James, is a wild beast that needs taming — fierce, reasonless, uncontrollable. A good part of the evils of life arise from its depredations. 1. First, of course, is the lying tongue. Of all the evils of speech falsehood is central and seminal. 2. Next to the lying tongue we must put the reviling tongue. 3. After the reviling tongue the foul tongue must be reckoned — the tongue that is the channel through which the impurities of a bad heart discharge themselves; the tongue that deals in indecent speech. 4. Next we think of the passionate tongue; the tongue that hastens to give voice to the anger and the hate that arise within. Anger, the Latin poet said, is a brief insanity; and when it begins to rage within the breast it needs to be chained and kept under till its paroxysm is past. But the mischievous tongue sometimes sets it loose and becomes its servitor — to hurl missiles of hot and stinging words right and left, doing damage that it is hard to repair. 5. The sarcastic tongue is another kind that needs taming. Sarcasm has its uses, no doubt; in our warfare with incorrigible evil-doers we must sometimes resort to it; but in the common intercourse of life it is scarcely more legitimate than the cudgel or the rapier. The arrows of sarcasm are barbed with contempt; that is what makes them rankle so; and contempt is a feeling that a good man cannot afford to indulge. 6. The scolding tongue is another kind that calls for a curb. Reproofs must be spoken, but sometimes there are too many of them, and their tone is too impatient, or too harsh, or too loud. Reproof must sometimes be severe, but it may be severe without being petulant. 7. The flattering tongue is a tongue that needs the bit. Honest and hearty praise is not to be avoided; we do not have half enough of it. Many are toiling on, heartsick and hopeless, to whom such a word of recognition would be as cold water to a thirsty soul. But this is not flattery. Flattery is either false praise, or praise addressed, not to the quality of our actions so much as to our excellences of person or that which is external to us. To praise your child's looks, and so stimulate his vanity, that is flattery, a most nauseous exhibition of it; and the tongue that indulges in it ought to be bridled. But the worst kind of flattery is that which seeks to please, and so to entice, by artful and insincere praises. This is a species of lying, of course; but it is a species so mean and dangerous that it needs to be singled out and denounced. 8. The chattering tongue is another kind that needs restraint and discipline. A few people are too taciturn; a great many are too talkative. Such endless prattle is an encroachment on other people's rights. How much time is consumed in attending to words that are utterly destitute of thought, that convey no ideas and impart no benefits! How many things we might have done that were worth doing, how many things we might have thought of that were worth thinking of, while we were listening! But what is worse, it is debilitating to the one who indulges in it. He talks so much that he has no time to think. "Set a watch, C God," prayed the psalmist, "before my mouth; keep the door of my lips." The trouble with some of these constant talkers-seems to be that there is no door to their lips, nothing but a doorway. 9. The last kind of tongue I shall mention that needs taming is the slanderous tongue. To speak evil of their neighbours is to some men and women a positive luxury. You would use harsh words about a man who got his living by retailing scandal, orally, for five cents a customer; what have you to say about the man who spices his newspaper with such items to make it sell? "But the tongue can no man tame." So much the more need, then, that a power stronger than man's should be invoked to subdue its unruliness and mitigate its fierceness. Such a Divine power the fables of all the peoples have celebrated; the power that tames the wildest beasts, and makes the tiger as gentle and docile as a lamb. The mythic song of Amphion is but a prelude of the triumph of the Prince of Peace, under whose blessed reign all savage and noxious creatures shall learn obedience and service. He at whose word the demoniac ceased his ravings, and the savage seas hushed their tumult — He who has the power and the purpose to subdue all things unto Himself — can cause the lying tongue to speak verities, and the reviling tongue to praise and bless, and the passionate tongue to be silent when the anger rises, and the foul tongue to utter purity, and the sarcastic tongue to temper its severities, and the scolding tongue to learn gentleness, and the flattering tongue to speak with sincerity, and the chattering tongue to be more discreet, and the talebearing tongue to be still. (W. Gladden, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind: |
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