3:1-4
In the early church the teachers were of first rate importance Wherever they are mentioned, they are mentioned with honour. In the Church at Antioch they are ranked with the prophets who sent out Paul and Barnabas on the first missionary journey ( Acts 13:1 ). In Paul’s list of those who hold great gifts within the Church they come second only to the apostles and to the prophets ( 1 Corinthians 12:28 ; compare Ephesians 4:11 ). The apostles and the prophets were for ever on the move. Their field was the whole Church; and they did not stay long in any one congregation. But the teachers worked within a congregation, and their supreme importance was that it must have been to them that the converts were handed over for instruction in the facts of the Christian gospel and for edification in the Christian faith. (Barclay)
In the New Testament itself we get glimpses of teachers who failed in their responsibility and became false teachers. There were teachers who tried to turn Christianity into another kind of Judaism and tried to introduce circumcision and the keeping of the law ( Acts 15:24 ). There were teachers who lived out nothing of the truth which they taught, whose life was a contradiction of their instruction and who did nothing but bring dishonour on the faith they represented ( Romans 2:17-29 ). There were some who tried to teach before they themselves knew anything ( 1 Timothy 1:6-7 ); and others who pandered to the false desires of the crowd ( 2 Timothy 4:3 ). (Barclay)
The Christian teacher entered into a perilous heritage. In the Church he took the place of the Rabbi in Judaism. There were many great and saintly Rabbis, but the Rabbi was treated in a way that was liable to ruin the character of any man. His very name means, “My great one.” Everywhere he went he was treated with the utmost respect. It was actually held that a man’s duty to his Rabbi exceeded his duty to his parents, because his parents only brought him into the life of this world but his teacher brought him into the life of the world to come. It was actually said that if a man’s parents and a man’s teacher were captured by an enemy, the Rabbi must be ransomed first. It was true that a Rabbi was not allowed to take money for teaching and that he was supposed to support his bodily needs by working at a trade; but it was also held that it was a specially pious and meritorious work to take a Rabbi into the household and to support him with every care. It was desperately easy for a Rabbi to become the kind of person whom Jesus depicted, a spiritual tyrant, an ostentatious ornament of piety, a lover of the highest place at any function, a person who gloried in the almost subservient respect showed to him in public ( Matthew 23:4-7 ). Every teacher runs the risk of becoming “Sir Oracle.” No profession is more liable to beget spiritual and intellectual pride. (Barclay)
As the Jewish Rabbis themselves said, “Not learning but doing is the foundation, and he who multiplies words multiplies sin” (Sayings of the Fathers 1: 18). (Barclay)
There is no man in this world who does not sin in something. The word James uses means to slip up. “Life,” said Lord Fisher, the great sailor, “is strewn with orange peel.” Sin is so often not deliberate but the result of a slip up when we are off our guard. This universality of sin runs all through the Bible. “None is righteous, no not one,” quotes Paul. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” ( Romans 3:10 ; Romans 3:23 ). “If we say we have no sin,” says John, “we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” ( 1 John 1:8 ). “There is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins,” said the preacher ( Ecclesiastes 7:20 ). “There is no man,” says the Jewish sage, “among them that be born, but he hath dealt wickedly; and among the faithful there is none who hath not done amiss” ( 2 Esdras 8:35 ). There is no room for pride in human life, for there is not a man upon earth who has not some blot of which to be ashamed. Even the pagan writers have the same conviction of sin. “It is the nature of man to sin both in private and in public life,” said Thucydides (3: 45). “We all sin,” said Seneca, “some more grievously, some more lightly” (On Clemency 1: 6). (Barclay)
The bit and rudder have the power to direct, which means they affect the lives of others. A runaway horse or a shipwreck could mean injury or death to pedestrians or passengers. The words we speak affect the lives of others. A judge says, “Guilty!” or “Not Guilty!” and those words affect the destiny of the prisoner, his family, and his friends. The president of the United States speaks a few words and signs some papers, and the nation is at war. Even a simple yes or no from the lips of a parent can greatly affect the direction of a child’s life. ¶ Never underestimate the guidance you give by the words you speak or do not speak. Jesus spoke to a woman at a well, and her life and the lives of her neighbors experienced a miraculous change (John 4). Peter preached at Pentecost and three thousand souls came to salvation through faith in Christ (Acts 2). ¶ On April 21, 1855, Edward Kimball went into a Boston shoe store and led young Dwight L. Moody to Christ. The result: one of history’s greatest evangelists, a man whose ministry still continues. The tongue has the power to direct others to the right choices. (Wiersbe, 867)
3:5-8
The damage the tongue can cause is like that caused by a forest fire. The picture of the forest fire is common in the Bible. It is the prayer of the Psalmist that God may make the wicked like chaff before the wind; and that his tempest may destroy them as fire consumes the forest and the flame sets the mountains ablaze ( Psalms 83:13-14 ). Isaiah says “wickedness burns like a fire, it consumes briers and thorns; it kindles the thickets of the forest” ( Isaiah 9:18 ). Zechariah speaks of “a blazing pot in the midst of wood, like a flaming torch among sheaves” ( Zechariah 12:6 ). The picture was one the Jews of Palestine knew well. In the dry season the scanty grass and low-growing thorn bushes and scrub were as dry as tinder. If they were set on fire, the flames spread like a wave which there was no stopping. ¶ The picture of the tongue as a fire is also a common Jewish picture. “A worthless man plots evil, and his speech is like a scorching fire,” says the writer of the Proverbs ( Proverbs 16:27 ). “As pitch and tow, so a hasty contention kindleth fire” ( Sirach 28:11 ). There are two reasons why the damage which the tongue can do is like a fire. (Barclay)
3:14-16
Slander is here the most prominent feature; and of all sins there is none more base and odious. He who speaks against you is either your enemy, or your friend, or an indifferent person. If he be your enemy, it is either hatred or envy that prompts him to a crime which has ever been regarded as mean and despicable. If he be your friend, how perfidious must it be thus to violate the obligations of amity. If an indifferent person, why does he traduce you? He has not offended you, nor have you offended him. ¶ Slander attacks the honour of others; and of what arms does it avail itself? A sort of arms which have ever been deemed reproachful; these are, the weapons of the tongue. What time does he choose to give the blow? That when one is the least prepared for defence, or when the person traduced is absent. Slander, that it may eat with more effect, commits three other faults. Of some occurrences it affects to speak in secret. It endeavours to palliate and please. It covers itself with a thousand pretexts, which have the semblance of equity. (Sutcliffe)
There is no sin more odious to God and man: to God, who is love and charity; to man, whom it assails with so much licentiousness. Hence the scriptures represent such a man as formidable and dangerous, on account of the numerous mischiefs he everywhere occasions. But, do you say, we are diverted with hearing him. I grant it; but at the same time that you are pleased and diverted, you despise and hate him. For though you take pleasure in hearing when others are concerned, you fear for yourselves, well judging that you will not be better treated when occasion offers. (Sutcliffe)
The required reparation of honour is extremely delicate and important. You must repair the honour you have snatched from your brother, and no power can dispense with the duty. You must repair it as far as possible, because it is dear and precious. You must repair it even at the expense of your own character; and we well know how difficult it is to consent to this kind of humiliation. (Sutcliffe)
NOTE: Please see the following web-page for most of the works cited–if not all: https://insidecrosspoint.org/sermons/2022/sept/bibliography.html. Most works cited on that web-page correspond to the verses they are outlined with, or in the case of background information, general references, author information, etc., one will find cited material with the Bible books the citations are associated with.