Abstract
James 3:1–12 supplements routine exhortations to guard against the speech which follows from particular vices (1:19–20, anger; 1:26, false piety; 4:11, slander) with a wisdom speech on the tongue, which appears to make the project impossible. Limiting the reflection on out of control or destructive speech to those seeking recognition as teachers (v. 1) introduces examples of destructive false teaching not present in James. The moralists’ distinction between those who require moral reprimand, those serious about making progress in virtue, and the “wise” as employed in Pauline exhortation resolves the tension between goal and difficulty noted in James. James 3:1–12 cautions “those in progress” against considering themselves “the perfect” (v. 2). Positive speech within the community, encouragement, mutual correction, healing, and prayer (5:7–20) do not require instruction by the wise.
Without the address from James, “slave of God and the Lord Jesus Christ” to “the twelve tribes in the diaspora” in Jas 1:1 and a second reference to “our Lord Jesus Christ” introducing its warning against partiality for the rich in Jas 2:1, there would be no reason to consider this writing an apostolic letter in the Christian canon. Its echoes of sayings attributed to Jesus, such as the prohibition against swearing oaths in Jas 5:12, might as easily be read as representations of the Jewish or Greco-Roman matrix found in commentaries. Even though James is not addressed to either a specific community or to any named individuals, scholars have suggested that the letter is modeled on Paul’s letters to correct partiality within the assembly (2:1–13) and ritualized prayer over the sick that requires anointing by “the elders” (5:13–15).
Ralph Martin hypothesizes that an initial collection of material from James of Jerusalem in the early 60s CE was codified several decades later in Antioch to address specific problems in the Jewish Christian synagogues. In addition to the explicit problems of richer believers expressing disdain for and disregarding the poor, and a sloganizing of faith not works, apparently referring to Paul, he presumes that the conclusion (Jas 5:19–20) refers to teachers who are leading others astray out of personal ambition. 1 To the contrary, these verses are not linked to the warning in Jas 3:1. Mutual correction is vested in any member of this morally engaged community with an opportunity to call a sinner back to the right path. Matthew 18:15–17 provides the formal structure for a more limited situation in which private exhortation fails. Abraham Malherbe describes the practice of communal psychagogy as the model that is routinized in Paul’s churches (see 1 Thess 5:11–15; Rom 15:1–7; 1 Cor 5 and 14; Gal 6:1–5; 2 Thess 3:6–15). 2 Short units or single sayings of moral exhortation and instruction are so essential to community formation that Pauline letters cannot be conceived without them. 3
Other routines in which community members interact as reflected in Jas 5:13–18 also fit the model of mutual pastoral care that Greco-Roman philosophers present as therapy for weak or ailing souls. However, in the philosophical accounts one finds special instructions for teachers. They employ bold speech, telling hard truths rather than flattery to some, while using a gentle tone toward the discouraged (e.g. Plutarch, “How to Tell a Flatterer from a Friend,” Mor 50B; 72BE; Dio Chrysostom, Orations 51.5, 7; 73.13). Paul casts himself in that role and suggests that he provided the Thessalonians with a model that they are to remember and follow (1 Thess 2:1–12). 4 James employs a first-person plural, a “we” to address its audience with the “brothers” that can also mark transitions in Paul’s letters. But James never incorporates other linguistic expressions for special authority over those addressed. Nor will its speech ethic provide for a teacher’s frank confrontation. Sections of the writing itself do adopt that tone of reprimand, railing against partiality and ignoring the needs of poor members (2:1–16), excessive confidence in one’s plans for the future (4:13–17), and the oppression by the rich, who do not appear to be members of the community (5:1–6).
Earlier scholars considered James to be compiled from disjointed pieces of exhortation. Most interpreters today find sufficient continuity between the sections to treat it as a single composition. 5 A comparison of ethical exhortation in James with community formation in the Pauline corpus suggests that James is advocating similar practices of mutual pastoral care. If it was composed after the martyrdom of James and other apostles, the injunction against seeking to be “teachers” (Jas 3:1) may be as much accommodation to reality as concern over ill-qualified or ambitious individuals seeking church offices. The “catholic” or universal letter from one of the founding apostles can provide authoritative guidance. Both James and 1 Peter replace specific recipients with “to the diaspora” addressees to indicate believers comprising Jews in the first case and former gentiles in the latter.
James and the Pauline letters
Paul’s letters provide important clues about the literary and communal function of James, but its author does not compose an epistle modeled on Paul such as one finds in the pseudonymous letters that supplement the Pauline corpus. The literary habits of James make any sources difficult to pin down. Citations of Scripture and possible allusions to Jesus’s sayings are notoriously problematic. The author presumes an audience that is familiar enough with its authorities to dispense with citation formulae. Instead, creative reflection on familiar material takes precedence over literal reproduction of earlier texts. 6 For authors routinely trained in imitative invention of speech appropriate to a famous character and/or situation, such creativity would become second nature. Listeners will discern either Scripture or Jesus’s own voice authorizing, “has God not chosen those poor in the world [to be] rich in faith and heirs of the Kingdom which he promised to those who love him” (Jas 2:5), without the verbal correspondence we might require for a citation. 7
Pauline epistles invoke Paul’s authority as an apostle of Jesus Christ and Scripture citations as premises in argument. At that level of linguistic detail, James has no explicit connections to specific Pauline letters. 8 The dispute over works and salvation (Jas 2:18–26) does not engage Paul’s logic but apparently emerged from third-party sloganizing. Perhaps issues of speech ethics in James are another indirect reflection of concerns in the larger Pauline corpus. Colossians and Ephesians reflect growing concern over the danger that inappropriate speech undermines community life (Col 3:8; Eph 4:31; 5:4). Ephesians 4:29 underlines the function of this ethical trope, “do not let any evil word out of your mouth, but only what is useful for building up.” 9 The assorted vices of speech can be culled from Jewish wisdom collections such as Sirach: against reckless speech (Sir 4:29); against gossip and slander (Sir 19:6; 28:13–26), against mockery and abusive words (Sir 27:17) and against rude or foul language (Sir 23:13). Instead of adapting their model of cataloguing vices which flow from unguarded speech, the author of James creates a fine-tuned characterization of the tongue on fire that employs rhetorical tropes and a verbal soundscape using alliteration (Jas 3:1–12). 10
Margaret Mitchell provides a helpful approach to understanding how James reflects influences from the Pauline corpus by investigating how its author engages in creative recasting. 11 In addition to the more obvious letters, Galatians and Romans, Mitchell includes 1 Corinthians in the group. Rather than contest their authority, James assumes it. James 2:5 is a remembered assemblage of bits from 1 Cor 1:27–28, 1 Cor 6:9, and 1 Cor 2:9. A catalogue of topics and terms that Paul employs in addressing the factions which threatened communal life in 1 Corinthians surfaces in James as well: 12
To this terminological collection, one should include the designation teleios (“perfect, mature”) for those who have achieved that moral perfection to which believers aspire (1 Cor 2:6; 14:20; Jas 1:4; 3:2). The quarreling factions in Corinth led Paul to charge them with remaining mere infants and not even belonging to that middle ethical category of those making progress toward becoming wise or perfect (1 Cor 1:18–31; 3:1–9).
James employs the same philosophical distinctions between the weakest characters who must be ripped away from evils that have a hold on them, those who have shed such false ideas but need precepts, correction and encouragement, and the truly wise employed by Paul (cf. Seneca, Ep. 95.34–35).
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Those making ethical progress do not require constant supervision by a teacher. On occasions wisdom can direct such souls to follow the correct path: . . .in practical matters the path should be pointed out for the benefit of one who is still short of perfection, but is making progress. Wisdom by her own agency may perhaps show this path herself without the help of admonition; for she has brought the soul to a stage where it can be impelled only in the right direction. Weaker characters (imbecilliores), however, need someone to precede them to say: “Avoid this!” or “Do that!” (Seneca, Ep. 94.50)
Establishing the churches as communities in which members admonish each other to make moral progress assumes a fundamental grasp of what virtue is. Castigating the Corinthians for remaining infants needing baby food (1 Cor 3:1–2) implies that they have fallen away from that communal obligation. The apostle spends much more time on correcting other moral lapses in their communal behavior than responding to questions raised in the letter he had received from Corinth.
Some interpreters have taken the use of “body” (sōma) in Jas 3:2–3, 6 to be making the same metaphorical transposition that Paul does in 1 Corinthians. It is the community that is being destroyed and rendered impure by teachers misusing the power of speech. 14 However, James does not provide any linguistic clues that his “whole body” transfers to the community. Nor does the author adopt a “Paul sounding” voice or theological logic in adapting elements from that letter corpus. Paul taunts his Corinthian audience, claiming to withhold a wisdom that he can only teach to the perfect (1 Cor 2:6). That wisdom is the paradox of God’s crucified messiah, incomprehensible to the learned, both Jews and Greeks (1 Cor 1:18–25), a soteriology that never surfaces in James. 15 A dangling “of glory” in Jas 2:1, “of our Lord Jesus Christ of glory,” might provide some distant echo of the “Lord of glory” in 1 Cor 2:8. But for James, ethical wisdom consists of verbal instruction with overtones of torah, “the perfect (teleios) law of freedom” (1:25). 16 Impartiality and proper concern for the poor will enable believers to “complete the royal law according to Scripture” (2:8). 17 References to the commandments against adultery and murder (2:11) indicate that this perfect law is associated with torah. The maxim against slandering one another (4:11) presupposes that the torah prohibits such speech. Yet the prohibition which follows does not cite torah on that point but prohibits oath-swearing (4:12). That verse is the most direct allusion to a Jesus sayings tradition in James. 18 Evidently James’s Jesus promoted fulfilling the law, a soteriology that is closer to Matt 5:17–20 than to the law/faith dichotomy of Gal 3:7–14. 19
Controlling Speech: Impossible Perfection?
The initial maxims cautioning readers to be “quick to listen, slow to speak” (1:19) complemented with warning against anger (vv. 19b–20) are conventional enough even today. Parents instruct children to “slow down and listen” or “forget it, just walk away” in response to playground insult. As they get older, instructions may be more nuanced: “Don’t get mad. Try asking …” Today strategies developed for words spoken in face to face encounters prove less useful for the increasingly toxic social media environments. Some analysts link the lack of social consequences in the digital world with increasing incidents of hate speech in the public space as well. Workshops for high school teens even use the mantra, “hear something, say something,” urging third party intervention or response when they hear someone else being taunted, bullied, or otherwise threatened. Our discussions of this crisis in speech ethics occur with no reference to the “royal law of freedom” or to words of Jesus such as Matt 5:22.
James 1:26 makes the controlled tongue a litmus test for anyone claiming to be religious. It is linked to a maxim reflecting another element in the ethical focus of James, “care for orphans and widows in their distress” as persons unstained by the world (1:27). James uses purity terms as a map through moral hazards to remind its audience that perfection requires drawing lines of separation from the values of the larger culture. 20 Yet the general wisdom associated with the need to discipline such speech as slander, angry exchanges, deceit, frivolity, not to mention garrulousness have extensive parallels in both Jewish wisdom and popular philosophy. 21 Evidently dissent from the values of the world does not prohibit appeal to such familiar moral topics, but requires a break with the social context of shame culture and benefactor-client relationships. James is devoted to reconstituting the world to which believers imagine themselves belonging. 22 This author employs a different literary mode than the wisdom collections like Proverbs and Sirach, employing argumentative structures more than aphorisms.
Our contemporary formulae for ethical speech have more in common with the prudential wisdom proverbs or short fables in Jewish wisdom books or with Stoic philosophical reflections than torah or Jesus traditions. James sets controlling speech within the context of religious obligation. 23 Consequently even the “quick to listen, slow to speak” maxim with the associated warning against anger is shifted from the prudential to the religious in a concluding phrase, “Human anger does not accomplish God’s righteousness” (1:19f). 24 How should readers take this shift of focus? Failure to achieve the recommendations of practical wisdom simply leaves individuals less happy, successful, or virtuous than they might hope. Failure measured against the “royal law” leaves one subject to the judgment of its source, God.
Bernd Schipper points out the shift between the theological caution that invoked finding favor with the Lord and a default mode of general aphorisms or wisdom as the prudential path to success in Prov 12:13–25. Unlike the addressees of James, recipients of its instruction belong among the social elite, both owners of agricultural estates and judges at the city gates. Though they are cautioned against anger, loose talk, unwillingness to listen and heed sound advice, gossip, lying or duplicitous speech and the like, they are expected to speak wisely the words that promote healing and justice. Schipper suggests that the appeal to the Lord’s sanctions in Prov 12:22 acknowledges that one can go too far in trusting sapiential prudence. A reminder of the theological grounding for acting as the righteous or wise rather than the foolish is in order. 25
The Hebrew version of Prov 10:12, “Love covers all offenses,” may be poking its head out in the final words of James, “he [= the one who brings a sinner back from error] will cover a multitude of sins.” 26 Proverbs 12:15 contrasts the fool’s confidence that his course is the correct one with the wise who listen to the counsel of others. Proverbs 12:18 contrasts the healing word spoken by a wisdom teacher with social consequences of abusive talk. Like a sword, rash words can be turned against the speaker. Proverbs concerning the use and abuse of speech in a communal setting might have inspired the cooperative moral pedagogy in James and Paul’s letters. However, the proverbial dichotomy of wise vs. fools has mutated. Philosophical moralists pushed the possession of wisdom beyond the good sense and prudential judgment reflected in proverbs and fables. Between the wise and the ignorant, moralists address a middle group, those who reject ignorance, malice, and deliberate evil doing. They are making progress in virtue. Combining that philosophical perspective with a theological commitment to prioritize God’s choice over relying on prudential human wisdom nuances the presentation of wisdom in James. Human wisdom always remains imperfectly effective. Consequently, even as believers assist each other in progressing—and will be aided in that task by the exhortations offered here by “the servant of God and Lord Jesus Christ” (1:1)—they are cautioned against counting themselves among the perfect. But one need not consider that perspective a counsel of despair. With its nod to Prov 10:12 as the last word, James indicates confidence in the God who will send wisdom to one who asks (Jas 1:5).
Tongue Fired Up: Hazardous Terrain Ahead (Jas 3:1–12)
With speech ethics as communal pedagogy introduced in chapter one, Jas 3:1–12 resets the course after caustic warnings about partiality, disregard for the poor, and misapplied Paulinist sloganizing in chapter two. This transition employs a feature common in wisdom collections: words from one group of sayings recur in others with slightly different connotations. Among those which Watson has noted that tie this section to the rest of the composition, the audience has already heard eight: 27
The tongue’s relationship to the body provides the central thread in elaboration on speech: two comparisons for control (the bridle and horses, and the ship’s rudder) represent the tongue’s relationship to the body (vv. 3–5a). But where bridles and rudders ordinarily perform their designated function, the tongue proves rebellious. Unlike even wild animals it will not be tamed (vv. 7–8). Its duplicity is so unmatched in nature that no one can keep it under control in all circumstances (vv. 11–12). But since that behavior does not reflect the creator’s intention (v. 10), humans are responsible for what comes out of their mouths and even, perhaps, for how they respond to what others say (as in Prov 12:16).
Philosophical moralists also acknowledge the multiple ways in which too much talking endangers individuals, social relationships, and even the security of the city. 28 Plutarch shifts from the usual pairing of tongue and lips (e.g. Prov 10:19–21) to tongue and teeth. Nature provides the latter as a fence, but in the case of those afflicted with extreme cases the only option is biting down on the tongue until it bleeds (Mor. 503C). Contrary to the direction taken by Jas 3:1–12, Plutarch prescribes a treatment protocol for the afflicted. In addition to recalling benefits and exempla of refraining from talking, those desiring to be cured are to follow a series of exercises: delay and pay careful attention to responding, avoid any topics that set them off, and even substitute writing for speaking. Simply pulling on the reins will not work for those people most seriously afflicted with the compulsion to talk all the time.
If Jas 3:3–12 holds a comparable view of how difficult it is to refrain from speaking, the “perfect man” in v. 2 should not be read as actually existing. 29 That hypothetical person is distinguished from the “we” that embraces author and audience. All of them stumble in many ways (v. 2a), whereas the perfect (teleios) does not stumble “in word” (logos). On one reading logos/“word” refers to speech. On a second level (the philosophical), logos refers to reason. For wise persons reason or the mind controls both the psychological and physical passions (Philo, On Dreams 2.165). Johnson suggests that in Jas 1:26 rather than the most common meaning of the verb apateō, “to deceive or trick,” for the individual’s mental state, translators consider a less frequent one, “to indulge or allow pleasure.” 30 Sirach 14:6 employs that sense, “give and take and provide enjoyment for your soul because it is [not possible] to seek pleasure in Hades.” Or in Mark 4:19, interpreting the Parable of the Sower, the nominal form appears in the phrase “the concerns of this age, the apatē of wealth and all the rest of the desires.” In other words, the unbridled tongue becomes the gateway for all the passions. James 1:26 is not simply claiming that the individual in question has a false estimate of his or her piety. According to James, “true piety” requires that all desires are under the mind’s control, as is the ideal of Stoic moralists. In a true state of apatheia such disturbing passions may not even arise. Instead of that solution, Jas 1:27 provides an alternate route which even those “making progress” toward virtue should achieve, caring for the afflicted and keeping oneself unstained by the world.
Though James is familiar with tropes on controlled speech and perfection in philosophical moralists, the transition from v. 26 to biblical categories of justice and holiness as purity in v. 27 is significant. Philosophical reason is not the source of moral authority, since no one can claim to be error free in speech or reason. Holiness derived from knowledge of God as remedy for the dominance of disordered passions among non-Jews is another ethical motif that James shares with the Pauline material. Paul admonished those in Thessalonica to “. . .know how to control your own body in holiness and honor, not with lustful passion like the gentiles, who do not know God” (1 Thess 4:4–5). For Paul it is ignorance of God, not flawed reasoning, that leaves desires in control. 31
James 2:1–13 stipulates what the divine “law of freedom” (v. 10) requires: deeds that reflect the mercy one hopes to receive from God (vv. 12–13), not mere words. James underscores the basis for this exhortation as written in Scripture. God has chosen the poor to be rich in faith (2:5). James will again invoke Scripture when God exalting the lowly serves as warning against the vice of envy in Jas 4:5–6 (citing Prov 3:34). 32 When Jas 3:1 introduces a new topic, those who might put themselves forward as “teachers,” the audience is prepared to be skeptical. What follows in this mini-discourse, “On the Tongue” in vv. 2–12, justifies that suspicion.
Grammatical difficulties in Jas 3:1 make the anticipated outcome of this deliberative reflection ambiguous. Does the imperative, “Many should not be (or become) teachers,” intend to establish or limit existing practice in the community? Teachers are an identifiable group within Pauline churches (1 Cor 12:28–29; Eph 4:11; and for Antioch, Acts 13:1). Surprisingly, teaching does not explicitly figure in the qualifications that 1 Tim 3:1–7 presents for men it encourages to take on the role of bishop or community overseer. Exegetes sometimes presume that its cautionary notes against teachers coupled with the negative reflection on speech also reflect the dangerous impact of false teaches seen in the Pastoral Epistles. However, James presents a different possibility. It considers the community as a whole responsible for the moral integrity or lack thereof in the church. Its speech ethic is directed toward everyone, not a subgroup.
As an example of instruction directed toward individuals with an official position as teacher within the religious community, Strange points to the Instructor in the Community Rule from the Dead Sea Scrolls corpus. He will avoid disputes with outsiders, while offering encouragement to adherents who have turned toward the Way. This ideal teacher is to have perfect control over his speech (1 QS X, 17–26):
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I shall hold no angry grudge against those repenting of sin yet neither shall I love any who rebel against the Way; the smitten I shall not comfort until their walk be perfected. I shall give no refuge in my heart to Belial. In my mouth shall be heard neither foolishness nor sinful deceit; neither fraud nor lies shall be discovered between my lips. Rather the fruits of holiness will be upon my tongue. . .For thanksgiving shall I open my mouth, the righteousness of God shall my tongue recount always. . .Counselled by wisdom, I shall recount knowledge.
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Such a perfectly disciplined instructor would meet the stricter divine scrutiny of Jas 3:1b and might even consider it appropriate (1 QS X, 10–13a). Since the author of James speaks as an authoritative teacher, that role is not being excluded from Christian communities entirely. The caution in Jas 3:1 may simply concern numbers. Few people could even hope to meet this exacting standard. If Jesus’s sayings play in the background of James, this injunction represents a faint echo of Jesus’s words in Matt 23:7–10 against calling any disciple “rabbi” or other honorific. What follows should dissuade anyone from assuming that responsibility.
Warning and Lament: Distrust the Tongue (vv. 3–12)
James 3:1–2 introduces the real world in which there is no teacher or instructor comparable to the imagined figure in the Community Rule. Writings like James and perhaps a Pauline letter collection provide formative instruction by first generation apostles that is to be passed on along with sayings of Jesus and Jewish Scriptures. The meditation on speech in Jas 3:1–12 is crafted to dissuade anyone who might claim similar authority, not to establish an office of teacher within the Christian assembly. Some exegetes have resisted this as a negative conclusion by appealing to the broader cultural consensus in both philosophical and Jewish sources, which hold that controlling the tongue is a difficult but not impossible ethical ideal. 35 Even if one adopts that position, by the end of this section an audience should be convinced that neither they nor any of those around them can claim the moral authority of wisdom.
Like a skilled composer the opening metaphors in Jas 3:3–12 begin with what appears harmonious and familiar only to introduce unexpected dissonant notes. Horses being driven by a charioteer or the large ship with a skilled helmsman at the rudder (vv. 3–5a) are often employed as examples in ethical treatises. Here in James there is a rumbling bass line that is often not acknowledged. 36 Driving a chariot team around a Roman racetrack is louder and more precarious than a royal carriage leaving Buckingham Palace. This element of danger surfaces clearly when James describes the ship as a large one being driven by strong winds. Strength, skill, and raw courage are required to stay on course in both situations. The concluding line in this stanza (v. 5a) is somewhat dissonant. The tongue appears to be both the small member and yet comparable to the noisy chaos or driving wind that make control so difficult. Without that phrase, James might appear to mean that what is beyond the capability of the amateur in watching over the tongue could be supplied by a rigorous training like that of a charioteer or helmsman. The tongue’s propensity to boasting is a familiar trope (e.g. Ps 12:3–4). 37
The next stanza turns up the emotional register by asking the audience to imagine the raging forest fire set off by a small spark (v. 5b–6). 38 Raging fires appear so often in news footage today that the imagery hardly requires explanation. Equating the tongue with fire seems straightforward, but the metaphorical development proves far from transparent: (a) world (cosmos) of iniquity set among our (bodily) members; (b) polluting the whole body; (c) igniting the wheel of birth (genesis); and (d) being set on fire from Gehenna. Even professional training may not be sufficient.
The phrase, “polluting the body,” retrieves an earlier metaphor of holiness as purity, “unstained by the world (cosmos)” (1:27). The other three expressions have adopted unusual terminology to suggest that creation itself is threatened with disorder. 39 James has gone outside the ordered world of wisdom literature into an apocalyptic scenario where the wheel of existence itself could be thrown into fiery collapse. 40 Like any skilled rhetorician, James uses striking sound patterns in phrasing. The active participle “set on fire” (phlogizousa) and then the passive “be set on fire” (phlogizomenē) introduce the third and fourth phrases that each incorporate similar sounding nouns in the genitive case, “of birth” (tēs geneseōs) and “from Gehenna” (geenēs). This verbal jingle codes what might be an apocalyptic quid pro quo. Jewish sources do not routinely associate fire or the devil with Gehenna. 41 But considering the Jesus tradition suggests another possibility. Jesus suggests that anyone who might blame a body part such as the eyes, foot, or hand responsible for sin ought to consider its amputation. Entering (eternal) life without that body part would be better than being thrown into Gehenna, unquenchable fire with it (Mark 9:43–49). Could a similar policy be employed for undisciplined speech? Amputating the cancerous tongue would mean becoming mute.
James shifts to an even more problematic description of the tongue in vv. 7–12. Allusions to Genesis in vv. 7–10a develop the absurdity of a rampaging tongue. Humans can control all forms of animal life (Gen 9:2; Philo, On Creation 83–88; Seneca, On Benefits 2.29.4), but not the tongue with its deadly poison (Ps 140:3). The same mouth with which people praise God utters curses against human beings who are in God’s image (Gen 1:26; TBenj. 6.5). Some listeners might even be reminded of popular entertainment in the Roman world. Advertisements for arena games included lists of wild animals to be shown; mosaics and frescos often depicted an extraordinary range of creatures from land, sea and sky. 42 Chariot races and curses go together. Some curse tablets ask demonic powers to cause the horses of opposing teams to go out of control, and even wish death on the drivers of opposing teams. 43 Today we ban parents from children’s sports events for yelling obscenities and threats at the kids, coaches, and referees. The Jesus tradition cautioned that even an apparently harmless insult can leave a person “liable to the Gehenna of fire” (Matt 5:22). 44
Two rhetorical questions and the concluding counterpoint bring this reflection in James 3 to an end (vv. 10b–12). James tells the audience directly that “things do not have to be like this” (v. 10b). Why? Because natural things, in this instance water sources and fruit bearing trees, remain true to their original type. Figs, grapes, and olives do not suddenly appear on another’s branches. Saltwater will not become fresh. Since nature does not demonstrate the dangerous instability of speech, listeners could reach distinctly different conclusions. Either to make the best of it (but the tongue can always betray you) or speech is not intended to be a destructive fire, so take precautions.
Conclusion
This cautionary vignette does not invite Christians to throw in the towel where ethical speech is involved. Speaking words of moral instruction and encouragement with one another and psalms in praise of God, the Creator, is essential to community life (Jas 5:13–20). Specific warnings about what believers should not say to others are scattered elsewhere in James (e.g. 4:11–12). This carefully crafted piece has two dangers in view, moral indifference, on the one hand, and self-satisfied boasting of perfection, on the other. Instead of entrusting the pastoral care of speech to those designated teachers, James invites the entire Christian community to be on watch for those sparks which could cause a raging inferno. It even echoes Jesus’s caution that an apparently casual insult might bring on fiery Gehenna.