NOTES for Jam 3:10

According to the apostle James, the tongue "grows" straight out of the heart. It "takes out" of the heart everything stored there, and by this either sanctifies or defiles everything around it. And this is so usual for us: to use one and the same mechanism of speech for prayer and cursing, for declaring love and for deceit. In this way we reveal to ourselves and to everyone around us our double-mindedness, our inner filth. James rebukes us: this ought not to be so. At the same time, he also says that none of us can tame his own tongue by himself. What, then, does he offer us? This: "Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you" (James 4:10). We must humbly let Him into our hearts, and then our filth will be cleaned out from there, and only blessing will come from our mouths.

The apostle's discourse on the need to bridle the tongue is one of the most eloquent passages in his epistle. From antiquity there has come down to us a story about Aesop, whose master twice sent him to the market with orders to bring back the best and the worst thing in the world. Both times Aesop brought back a tongue—the instrument of both evil and good. But while Aesop merely bore witness to the actual state of affairs, James, acknowledging that reality when blessing and cursing come from the same mouth, concludes: my brothers, this should not be so.

These words of James seem to be contradicted by his own statement that no human being can tame the tongue. This thought might be called excessively pessimistic; yet it is not difficult to understand that James had grounds for such a claim, for he is speaking about purely human efforts. But if we rely not on them but on the wisdom that comes from above, much changes.