Two ways to speak

James now addresses the duplicity of our speech.  What kinds of things do we say? What impact do our words have?

A look at the text (Read James 3:9-12)

The same person, with the same tongue or mouth can both praise God and at the same time curse other human beings. Yet, this shouldn’t be the case given that other humans are made in God’s image. The implication is that whilst you sing praise directly to God, by despising those made in his image, you are in effect denigrating the one whose image they bear (3:9).  “How can this be possible?” James asks? Is it really possible for us to contradict ourselves in the same breath (3:10).  He uses two illustrations, its not possible for water to be sweet and bitter, or fresh and salty at the same time. The salt will influence the taste of the whole fountain.  Nor, can a fig tree produce olives, or a grapevine figs.  The tree will produce fruit after its own kind (3:11-12).

Digging Deeper

Here James draws on themes that we hear from Jesus and Paul, First, that the fruit of our lives shows what is really going on in our hearts.  Secondly, that you cannot mix good with bad, without the bad contaminating the good.  Here again is an outworking of the big theme in the letter, our deeds, what we do and say are an outworking of our faith.

A look at ourselves

I frequently am reminded when I read Ephesians 5, that if the church is the bride of Christ, then we cannot claim to love Jesus but at the same time speak ill of his beloved bride.  The same illustration comes through here. I cannot claim to be worshipping and loving God whilst doing down my brothers and sisters.