The ministry of teacher in the earliest Christian Church was above all a ministry of the word. The teacher, or rabbi, in the church community took on the careful study of the Torah and the teaching of the Torah to others, primarily in...
The ministry of teacher in the earliest Christian Church was above all a ministry of the word. The teacher, or rabbi, in the church community took on the careful study of the Torah and the teaching of the Torah to others, primarily on the practical level. Of course, this practical teaching in the Church took place in the context of Christian interpretations of the Torah. And here the spiritual condition of the teacher himself became foundational. The ministry of a teacher-rabbi, like no other, easily and quickly exposed the gap between knowledge and even understanding of fundamental things connected with the Torah and with spiritual life in general, on the one hand, and awareness of those same things, on the other.
To learn and even understand what, for example, the inner Torah is, is much easier than becoming aware of its presence in one's own life and changing that life accordingly. Awareness presupposes inner changes in a person corresponding to what he knows theoretically. Then a person's whole life changes, not only his views and worldview.
The criterion of inner change is precisely speech. Here James is not original; he is merely reminding his readers of what should have been well known to them from the very popular collections of aphorisms of that time, included in the books we today call wisdom books. It is enough, for example, to open the Book of Proverbs to find there a whole series of aphorisms describing how a wise person guards his mouth and bridles his tongue, in contrast to a fool, who does not know how to do this. James merely reminds them of these obvious enough things. Indeed, for nothing of this sort to "slip out" from the tongue, a person must change seriously inwardly. The changes must touch his psyche so deeply that even the subconscious ceases to live a life of its own. Knowledge and understanding alone are not enough here; what is needed is that very awareness. And if it is absent, then it is better not to become a teacher, because the gap between knowledge and awareness is an extremely dangerous thing, spiritually destructive. And sometimes not only spiritually.
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3:1 Be not many teachers - Let no more of you take this upon you than God thrusts out; seeing it is so hard not to offend in speaking much. Knowing that we - That all who thrust themselves into the office. Shall receive greater condemnation - For more offences. St. James here, as in several of the following verses, by a common figure of speech, includes himself: we shall receive, - we offend, - we put bits, - we curse - None of which, as commonsense shows, are to be interpreted either of him or of the other apostles.
3:2 The same is able to bridle the whole body - That is, the whole man. And doubtless some are able to do this, and so are in this sense perfect.