Chapter 3
| James: Chapters -1- -2- -3- -4- -5- |
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| 3:1 Let not many of you become teachers, my brothers and sisters, being aware that we will receive greater judgment or scrutiny. 2 For we all stumble and cause to stumble in many ways. If anyone does not stumble in the words he speaks, this one is a completed man, able indeed to bridle the entire body. 3 Now, If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they will be persuaded by us, we are able to direct their entire body. • 4 Consider ships as well, being so large and driven by strong winds, yet they are directed by a small rudder, wherever the impulse of the one steering it intends. 5 In a similar way, the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts great things. Consider a small fire, how great a forest it is able to inflame. 6 The tongue is also a fire, a cosmos of injustice and hurt. The tongue is set among our members, making the entire body unclean, and setting on fire the direction of our becoming, and is itself set on fire by gehenna. 7 For all kinds of animals, of birds, and of creeping things and things of the sea are tamed and have been tamed by human ability, 8 but the tongue, no human is able to tame, it is an out-of-control evil, full of death-bringing poison [f]. 9 With it we bless and speak well of our Lord and our Father, and with it we curse men, those continually and actively coming into being as the likeness of God. • 10 Out of the same mouth comes words of blessing and words of cursing. My brothers and sisters, these things ought not to be so. 11 Can the spring out of the same opening pour forth both fresh and bitter water? 12 My brothers, is a fig tree able to produce olives? Or a vine, figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water. 13 Who is wise and skilled among you? Let him demonstrate what he does as benefitting others inside the gentleness of wisdom. • 14 If you have bitter jealousy and self-interest inside your heart, do not boast of it and thus lie against the truth. 15 This is not the wisdom coming down from above, but is earthly, soulish, and demonic. 16 For where false zeal [jealousy] and self-interest exist, there will be chaos and every worthless practice. • 17 But the wisdom from above is indeed first pure and devoted, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and of good fruits, non-judgmental and sincere [not-fake]. 18 Now the fruit of just innocence is sown as a seed inside of peace by those making peace. |
| Gospel Comments | Notes |
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| • Speak Christ: The words that we speak steer the entire course of our lives, for the words in our mouth come out from what is written upon our hearts and then become what we see, by which we judge all things. We can speak Christ personal as ourselves, seeing Him alone, or we can speak words that contradict Christ, words that are anti-Christ. But what we cannot do is speak both. • Speak Christ: Because we cannot save ourselves, we ask God to save us, even with tears (See Hebrews 5:7), yet also with confidence, from the poisonous death of speaking blessing one moment and speaking curse the next. • Speak Christ: James is getting right at the heart of the Covenant inside our souls, the story we tell ourselves about ourselves. The truth is Christ Jesus written upon our hearts (See Ephesians 3:17 & 2 Corinthians 3:3); the lie is a heart empty of God. A Christian who boasts of a heart that is deceitful and unclean is lying against the Truth. We speak only Christ our life. • Ruling Verse 10: “Wisdom from above” is knowing the Father as He actually speaks, His gospel words flowing through us, first becoming the story of our own souls, and then going out from us as seed and fruit of True blessing. |
f. First, the garbage dump just outside of Jerusalem, a place of burning and putrefaction. Second, the idea is that of an arrow tip dipped in poison. |