Our Tongues: Influential & Inflammatory!

We use our mouths every day.  We speak at home, we speak at work, we speak at school, we speak to our neighbors, we speak to our children, we speak to our spouses.  Some spouses are challenged by the words they use with one another.  Some couples are challenged to speak at all!

A married couple awakened one Saturday morning and, like most mornings, had very little to say to each other.  The phone rang, and the wife answered.  Her girlfriend Sally was on the other end so the two chatted awhile.  After some time, she asked Sally what she and her husband were doing.  Sally replied, “Oh, we’re just sitting here having coffee and talking to each other.”  She hung up the phone and looked over at her husband, who was reading the newspaper.  She said, “Do you know what Sally and her husband were doing this morning?  She said they were just having coffee and talking to each other!  Isn’t that great?  I wish we would do that.”  Her husband peered over his newspaper and replied, “Well, we can do that.  Put a pot of coffee on.”  His wife brewed some coffee and poured a cup for her husband and for herself.  Then, after the two sat in silence for a full minute, the husband impatiently barked, “Well, call Sally up and find out what they were talking about!”

The truth is, for most of us, it’s not what we don’t say that gets us into trouble, but what we do say. We are far more likely to use too many words than to use too little.  Solomon wisely advises: “The prudent hold their tongue (Proverbs 10:19; NIV).”

If Jesus is known for the “Sermon on the Mount,” James is known for his “Sermon on the Mouth!”  Nowhere else in all of the New Testament do we have such comprehensive treatment on the danger of the tongue.

In this passage (James 3:3-12), James describes four main characteristics of the tongue. We’ll look at just the first two in this post.

The Tongue is Influential

Influence can be used for good or bad.  This seems to be what James is teaching as he develops his exposition on the tongue.  He writes:

Indeed, we put bits in horses’ mouths so that they may obey us, and we turn their whole body.  Look also at ships: although they are so large and are driven by fierce winds, they are turned by a very small rudder wherever the pilot desires.  Even so, the tongue is a little member and boasts great things.

James likens the tongue to a bit used in a horse’s mouth.  This tiny piece of metal is placed in the mouth of a horse in order to guide it in the direction desired by the rider.  Just a slight tug of the reins and that little bit causes the horse to stop, go, or turn one way or the other.

James then compares the tongue to the rudder of a ship.  While ships are huge and driven by forceful winds, they are controlled “by a very small rudder wherever the pilot desires.”  The captain at the helm turns the wheel, and the rudder responds so that the entire ship changes direction.

Such power!  It’s amazing when you think of the great influence of something so small.  

James says that just as the behavior of the horse is influenced by the little bit, and just as the behavior of the large ship is influenced by a small rudder, so the behavior of a person is influenced by the small tongue.

The tongue “boasts of great things.”  It is influential.  It is capable of great things, things we should be using it for, like praising our Lord, preaching the Word, or speaking well of others.

But the context of this passage tells us that while the tongue can be used in a positive manner, too often, it is used negatively.  While the tongue is capable of accomplishing “great things,” too often, we use it to bring about “great damage.”  To this problem, James now turns.

The Tongue is Inflammatory 

The tongue has the potential to arouse anger and hostility.  It is incendiary and fiery.  So while the tongue has the ability to “boast great things,” James marvels, “See how great a forest a little fire kindles!”

Just as a small fire spreads and does great damage, so the tiny little tongue is capable of spreading damage far and wide.  The tongue has the same potential as a little match has when lit and placed near a dry, wooden brush.  

Several years ago, a 10-year-old boy admitted that he had started one of the largest wildfires in Southern California when he was playing with matches.  The blaze, called, “The Buckweed Fire,” started in the rural community of Agua Dulce:

…fanned by high winds and hot, dry weather…spread quickly, driving 15,000 people from their homes, destroying 21 houses and 22 other buildings, injuring three people and [burning] more than 38,000 acres.” ¹

It all began with one match.  James says your tongue has the same potential.  Just one word.  One small word spoken in anger has the potential to do the same destruction.  “How great a forest a little fire kindles!”  James adds:

And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity.  The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell.

Interestingly, the word “hell” here is used only twelve times in the New Testament.  Jesus uses it eleven times in His teachings in the Gospels, and then James uses it here.  Jesus referred to hell as the place of final condemnation.  It is the place where non-Christians will spend eternity, the place where unbelievers are separated eternally from God because of their sin.  

Here is a reminder of the need to have our sins forgiven, our need to turn away from sin and turn to the only Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, the One who lived for our righteousness and died as a substitute to atone for our sins.  The only way to avoid hell is to turn to Jesus Christ and to live for Him.

The tongue is inflammatory.  Years earlier, Solomon warned of the same deadly potential of the tongue.  He said: 

Without wood, a fire goes out; without a gossip, a quarrel dies down.  As charcoal to embers and as wood to fire, so is a quarrelsome person for kindling strife (Proverbs 26:20-21; NIV).

Your tongue has the potential to ruin the reputation of others.  When you repeat hearsay, when you repeat gossip, or when you fail to direct a critical person to go and talk directly with the person about whom he or she is criticizing, you are using your tongue in a way that tears down rather than builds up.

The tongue is influential, and the tongue is inflammatory.  But there is more–and we’ll come back to that next time!

**Excerpt from You’re Either Walking The Walk Or Just Running Your Mouth (Preaching Truth: 2020), pages 106-110, available on Amazon.

1. “10-Year-Old With Matches Started a California Wildfire,” The New York Times, November 1, 2007.