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James 3: Tiny Things
Larry Kirkpatrick
Published on LastGenerationTheology.org on 2006-02-17 20:00Z
James 3:1, 2 Be Not Many Masters
The literal reading is that men should be wary of becoming “leaders.” Those who lead in thechurch, teachers of God’s word will be held to a high standard, since they are claiming to be sent from God. The necessity of Yaacov’s warning, and the audacity of men is highlighted by both the fact of this pointed warning and also the fact that today people with every kind of doctrine are promoting themselves as being teachers sent by God.
It is not that those who teach will automatically receive condemnation, but that those who claim to teach truth will be held to a rigorous standard. If you claim to teach God’s truth, then you are going to be evaluated on the basis of the truth you are claiming to teach. It seems a given that many will fall far short, since there is such a wide variety found in religious teaching. Especially is this ironic because the very theology of Yaacov in the book known today as “James” is so widely ignored, disparaged, or minimized in Christendom.
Notice this second verse: “In many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body.” This is an interesting point because although we all offend in many things, Yaacov takes how we use words as an index of the whole. The supreme test comes at the point of language. If we can overcome here, then, he says, there is evidence of a Christian experience. So much so, that one who offends not in word is declared to be “a perfect man.” Because the tongue is the worst offender, control of it is an indicator of self-control and of true piety.
James 3:3-12 Tiny Things
As is the bit in a horse’s mouth, as is the rudder on a ship, so is the human tongue. Inspiration describes it as being like the beginning of a fire. Just a tiny smoldering may be coaxed into a mighty conflagration, and the human tongue makes great boasts. But so many of its boasts are not of God’s kingdom.
Verse six describes the tongue in very definite terms. It is a fire, a world of iniquity. It defiles the whole body. Of course, it is not the tongue itself, but the tongue as connected with the mind and heart. The tongue gives expression to the thoughts and feelings of the mind, and if the mind is unconverted, what will originate there but sin expressed in words? Focus here is on the untamability of the tongue. A man, unassisted, cannot tame it. On your own, on my own, our efforts will be ultimately futile.
It sets on fire the course of nature, literally, the “circle of creation” or of newly created things. The tongue begins strife; it is the chief means of communicating with others. It affects one’s whole life. We do not come with a “rewind” or “erase” button. Words spoken hang in the air and can never be called back. Speaking forth ideas is a part of human heritage like the Creator. He spoke worlds into existence with His words, but our speaking involves relationships between parties. God’s speaking was good and blessing. Ours, in contrast, is often destructive of relationships.
In the wilderness sanctuary service the priests must light their lamps only by appropriate fire, fire that God had kindled (Leviticus 10:1, 2; Numbers 3:4). But our text here states that the tongue is a fire kindled from hell, Gehenna. This imagery was suggested by the city dump just outside Jerusalem where persistently burning fires eventually consumed everything thrown over the edge.
We have the same two choices and those two choices only. We may light our tongue from the fires of destruction or from the source of life. Men have tamed all the animals, but verse eight makes clear that the tongue is another matter altogether. “Unruly?” What understatement! And “full of deadly poison?” Each of us have been on the receiving end of such and felt the sting of unfair words directed against ourselves.
Recall you how Yaacov began this book? Warning against the double-minded man. Here now he points out the double use of the tongue, praising God and cursing men. Such work, he suggests, calls into question the spiritual experience of the teacher. Consistency is sought for in the teacher, peacibleness, traits of faith and goodness. We are too quick to trust ourselves to the teachers, the Rabim who pass by and present themselves to us. The people who appear on television, or at the other end of a book, the people we listen to, shape our lives by, often are people we’ve never met and may never meet. We have but little to go on, little to test their experience by. We don’t know whether they have a persuasive real-life experience with Jesus.
God can use misguided men, but does He often send them? Has God sent the men you make your teachers? Yaacov suggests caution.
James 3:13-18 Earthly Wisdom
“Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you?” (verse 13). You recall how the book began? If you need wisdom, seek it from God. But God has chosen to work through people. Where we see the angel messages of Revelation 14 we see messages from heaven but to be given by the body of flesh and blood people whom Heaven has appointed. So too, throughout time, God has chosen to appoint flesh and blood teachers. Yes, we have the Holy Spirit as our teacher, but God has also given gifts to the church, and that has ever included leaders and workers who teach God’s truth in God’s name (Ephesians 4:1-13).
We are to measure those who present themselves as teachers, not on the basis of whether what they offer agrees with us, but partly at least, on whether their life harmonizes with the life of the Master. Those who are being sanctified by truth will demonstrate that they are being sanctified by truth. The truly wise is the man who copies Christ. The best teacher is the best disciple. And so Yaacov adds, “let him show out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom.” That is, let his godly behavior recommend him to you.
Nevertheless, we are to be wary of our own hearts. If we ourselves have bitter envying and strife, we have a kind of wisdom that is not sourced in God. Yaacov has called Him the Father of lights, in whom resides no shadow of turning (James 1:17). But if we have bitter envying and strife, our very life may be a lie against His truth. Our very character witness for God may be corrupting, misleading, misguiding. We may be signposts leading astray for our behavior is a recommendation of what we believe. If we lack integrity, we ourselves become false signposts, lying against the truth.
Envying and strife must follow, inevitably, the work of every false teacher. Every one not sent of God presents ideas that somewhere in the mixture lack His endorsement, that lead astray. Men and women with fallen natures, who are not found under the guidance of heaven, do not at random teach truth leading to heaven. Those teaching truth are led by one Spirit, even the Spirit of Truth (John 14:17; 15:26; 16:13).
If we are taught of the Spirit of Truth, we will make His ideas the focus of our work and not our own ideas. The controlling factor will be the inspired writings He has granted us. We will be watching most closely of all that we pattern our work after the design given in the Scriptures. Our time for Babylon will be spent, not seeking to incorporate its principles with our own, but only to understand the error so as to persuade to truth. Individuals here and there must study these things and find the bridges that can be used to rescue perishing souls. But our main work will always be presenting the truth that changes lives.
Most of us will have heard this quotation before. It is from the 1903 book Education, by Ellen G. White, page 57:
The greatest want of the world is the want of men—men who will not be bought or sold, men who in their inmost souls are true and honest, men who do not fear to call sin by its right name, men whose conscience is as true to duty as the needle to the pole, men who will stand for the right though the heavens fall.
But such a character is not the result of accident; it is not due to special favors or endowments of Providence. A noble character is the result of self-discipline, of the subjection of the lower to the higher nature—the surrender of self for the service of love to God and man.
The greatest lack is the lack of men and women who cannot be bought or sold. Why cannot they be bought or sold? Because in their inmost souls they are true and honest. In their inmost souls they love truth, they love the idea of truth, they are wholly committed to Jesus, Truth, and they see He has called them to live and give present truth. Such hold God’s truth in highest esteem and they go to God for that truth.
They are fearless. Calling sin by its right name may be unpopular. The latest schlock marketed to pastors and preachers in the name of Christ will hold no attractions for them. Their conscience is true to duty. They know they are not out on a leisurely graveyard ride. Their mission is known by them to be not general but specific. Souls are to be prepared by them, their appointed work is to facilitate the preparation of men and women for translation.
They will stand for the right no matter what. They will be uninterested in the latest distraction and snake oil offered by false teachers. The prayer of Jabez, the Purpose Driven line, the Left Behind line, the Passion movie emphasis, the Chronicals of Narnia and the next 14 fads in line—none of that will find emphasis in their work. Sure, behind many of these things there is a measure of truth. But not one of these recent Christian fads—not one—has been presented to the people of God by a teacher emphasizing present truth and preparation for translation. Why will Seventh-day Adventists who have been given so much from above, set it aside for strange fire from below?
The character of the straight teacher is not the result of quirk or fate. Self-discipline is the pathway, self-surrender for Christ the requisite. Yes, let not many become Rabbis, for to whom much is given much will be required. It will not be found to be enough for Seventh-day Adventist workers to take the latest shrink-wrapped, mass-marketed, glossy-covered offering and baptize it with a couple of Ellen White quotes. This is not food for the congregation. This is not the work of a true teacher. It is not our work to recycle Babylonian productions. Recycled Babylonian productions will not prepare people for translation. Yaacov calls us to a higher line. He suggests that we be wary of the teachers we entrust with the education of our souls.
True Teachers
Our agenda must be God’s agenda. Notice the close of the chapter and what it says of God’s teachers.
The wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace (James 3:17, 18).
God’s teachers will be led of Him. They will be seeking God’s wisdom. They will spend their energies to the utmost to secure that truth from above that is first pure. Their work may be controversial but it will be be such that when embraced it will bring peace. They will be patient, not with error but with people, and will be ready to labor gently with those who do not understand. They will be “easy to be entreated.”
Not harshness, but mercy will manifest their work. They will treat those with whom they disagree with love and care. True, they will be a terror to false teachers. That goes with the territory. They will be looked down upon and misrepresented. The currently popular pejoritives will be applied them; they will be called legalist and Pharisee, troubler in Israel. But they will go straight on. Their work will be without partiality. Their labor will be without hypocracy. They will not be employed by the Seventh-day Adventist Church while found teaching that which is antithetical to the truths committed to her. Rather, they will receive the truth God has appointed and let it take them to its farthest goal heavenward.
There is no greater hypocracy today than to be credentialled as a teacher of truth but to be promoting random agendas formed in the boardrooms of Babylon. We do not serve the almighty dollar but the Almighty God. His truth and only His truth will take us home.
Yes friends, Yaacov tells us that the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those that make peace. Not those that make peace with the world or with the latest offerings of misguided teachers, but those who make peace with God and who have committed themselves to offer only that which has been kindled from His fire. The teacher of truth will be a bearer of truth. Fallible, human, still growing, liable to err, still he will be seeking to advance in God’s appointed way. His congregation will pray for Him and for God to guide Him and correct Him.
This chapter of James has focused on teachers but also on those who listen to them. It has given guidance on how to determine who God’s teachers are. It has set the standard high. Religious groups have always struggled with leaders from within their own midst who would lead astray, reshape, revise, rewrite, recompose, reconstitute their essence. There is always someone on the map who would prefer a new order of things. The first generation of a movement know why they are there and what their purpose is. Following generations will struggle, for there are always in their midst those who have not fought so hard for truth, who have not been as true as the needle to the pole but who have wanted to place the impress of their own signature where God has already embossed His own.
We must beware of accepting the teachings of those we do not know, of those whose experience we do not know, of those who offer a kind of Adventism we do not know, or a kind of Christianity that, while it may be popular, is more sensual than spiritual. The road home leads not through Egypt or Babylon but to Canaan. On the riverbanks of the Jordan is set a marketplace where teachers claiming to be from God hawk their wares. But we must not let their initiatives obscure the horizon. We must pass on and cross over Jordan and enter Canaan. We have our Bibles. We have the instruction God has given us for these last days. Heaven has shown us the contours of our mission, His message. We are piilgrims and strangers here travelling to a better land. We have spent too much time at the mall, too much time perusing the wares on Jordan’s banks—all while Canaan beckons just beyond.
Do we know the time of our visitation? Can we spot the true teachers in Israel? And those who are studying for the ministry, what of you? Will you answer God’s call? Will you today commit yourself to always seeking His truth, always bypassing oferings that distract, always laboring with gentleness for present truth amongst those who have been told it doesn’t matter? Will you commit yourself to double-checking those things that sound awry, out of sync with the truth as it is in Jesus? Will you take your stand unbendingly to represent the beauty of Christ’s character though you be derided for so doing? God will anoint the ministry of every intrepid soul who makes such a commitment. And the people will listen where the undershepherds listen to the true Shepherd. The flock will be fed and delivered safely across Jordan. His sheep shall be fed in pastures of green in earth’s closing hour. LGT