Watch Your Mouth, Keep Your Head!

In our previous study, we learned that one key to enduring trials and avoiding temptation is to delight in God’s goodness and to delight in the gospel. James now turns to some practical expressions of our living out the gospel. Remember that this letter is written to Christians. James is not writing here about becoming a Christian; he’s writing about behaving as a Christian.  

The phrase at the beginning of this passage seems to build upon this gospel foundation. James writes, “So then,” which is better translated, “So know this,” or “Take note of this.”  We might say, “Listen up!”  Then, James calls for practical Christian evidence that flows from a changed life. 

Particularly in view here are Christian behaviors related to speaking, hearing, and thinking. Given this area of focus, you could say James is asking us to participate in a “Check-up from the neck up.”  

Watch Your Mouth 

James instructs first: “Let every man be swift to hear” and “slow to speak.”  In the words used by many of our mothers: Watch your mouth! There are two essential actions regarding properly using our mouths: we must close them tightly when we listen and open them slowly when we speak.

Close Tightly When You Listen 

Be a good listener. Don’t become the person you yourself recognize as a bad listener. We all know the type. You’re talking to this person, and all the while, you get the sense that this person isn’t really listening but is instead thinking of what they’re going to say when you are finished. And you feel like you need to hurry through the rest of your words in order to make a point because they’re getting ready to interrupt you to speak their mind. Don’t do that! 

Exercise restraint and keep your mouth closed while you listen to whoever is talking to you. Honor them by looking them in the eye and taking time to hear them out. Listen. Then, when it is your turn to speak, take care to speak wisely.

Open Slowly When You Speak 

Someone said God has given us two ears and one mouth, so we would listen twice as much as we would speak. Be a good listener. Know the danger of talking too much, of being a chatterbox.  

Solomon warns, “When words are many, sin is not absent, but he who holds his tongue is wise (Proverbs 10:19).”  In another place, he advises, “Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent, and discerning if he holds his tongue (Proverbs 17:28).”

Are you a good listener? Here’s a helpful question: What do you do with your cell phone when someone is talking to you? Let me suggest you put it away. Put it in your pocket or in your purse. Silence it. Honor the person who is talking to you by giving your full attention. When you turn to your phone to look at a text or a tweet, you are dishonoring the person talking to you and turning to someone else who is actually interrupting and doesn’t know it. Exercise the wisdom of restraint. Be swift to hear. 

James moves from the discipline of proper speaking and hearing to the discipline of proper thinking, especially the thinking we do in response to emotions.

Keep Your Head

Our initial response to jarring emotions is often wrong. We may allow our emotions to get the best of us and fail to “keep our head,” as Rudyard Kipling advises in his famous poem “If—” which begins with a call to “keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you.”  

Keep your head. In other words, don’t react in a way you will later regret. Paul writes, “Be angry and do not sin (Ephesians 4:26).”  Don’t allow your anger to lead you down a path that will hurt others and bring shame upon the Lord. Instead, James says, be “slow to wrath.”

Be Calm 

To be “slow to wrath” is to be calm, unruffled, and even-tempered. Apply this to the context of James’ call for wise listening and speaking. If we respond rashly to criticism or concern, we may sin by saying or doing something we later regret. We may even lash out in response, endeavoring to project our wrongs onto others.

Hear again the wisdom of Solomon: “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger (Proverbs 15:1).”

Watch your mouth. Keep your head. They go together. “Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.”

A lady once approached evangelist Billy Sunday in an effort to defend her frequent angry outbursts. She reasoned, “There is nothing wrong with losing my temper,” adding, “I just quickly blow up, and then it’s all over.”  Sunday wisely responded, “So does a shotgun. It quickly blows up, and look at the damage it leaves behind.”

It is nearly always better to be in the position of wishing you had said something than to be in the position of regretting what you actually said. How often do we wish we had not said what we actually said to our son, daughter, parents, or spouse? Indeed, “when words are many, sin is not absent, but he who holds his tongue is wise (Proverbs 10:19).”

Be Christlike 

James goes on to say why being an angry and bitter person is so unbecoming of a Christian. He argues, “for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.”

When James uses the word “righteousness” in his letter, the meaning generally differs from how Paul uses the same word in his letters. James is not talking about “saving righteousness” or “imputed righteousness,” the righteousness of Christ. He does not have the doctrine of justification in mind. Again, his letter is not about becoming a Christian but about behaving as a Christian.  

When James uses the word “righteousness” in his letter, he generally has in view the practical expression of one’s faith, the daily behavior of believers, and actions that are consistent with their faith. 

It’s the same understanding of righteousness Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount. He said, for example:

Be careful not to practice your righteousness before others to be seen by them…So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others (Matthew 6:1-2; NIV).”

So James warns: “The wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.”  A paraphrase of this verse may be: “When you lash out at someone, allowing your anger to get the best of you, you do not look like a follower of Jesus. Your behavior is inconsistent with the faith you profess. This does not please God!”

**Excerpt from You’re Either Walking The Walk Or Just Running Your Mouth (Preaching Truth: 2020), pages 39-43, available on Amazon.