Jameschapter 3
18 verses · BSBJames book hub →
Speaks with:James 3×4James 1×21 Peter 3×2Galatians 5×2Matthew 5×21 Corinthians 3×2
Summary
Chapter summary
'Be not many of you teachers… knowing that we shall receive heavier judgment', because teaching is talking, and talking is the problem. Bits turn horses and a small rudder turns a great ship, and 'the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how much wood is kindled by how small a fire!' Every kind of beast has been tamed, but the tongue can no man tame. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and curse men made after the likeness of God: 'these things ought not so to be.' Two wisdoms then divide, the earthly, sensual, devilish, and 'the wisdom that is from above,' first pure, then peaceable, full of mercy and good fruits (3:17).
Context
Epistle · James — James overview
- A. 1–12 A Small Tongue Sets a Forest Ablaze
- B. 13–18 Earthly Wisdom and the Wisdom From Above
The outline
A.A Small Tongue Sets a Forest Ablazevv. 1 to 12
Read vv. 1 to 12 →B.Earthly Wisdom and the Wisdom From Abovevv. 13 to 18
Read vv. 13 to 18 →
The world behind this chapter
James 3The history
Being a teacher was the honored position in Jewish community life. A teacher was addressed with respect, given the good seat, and consulted, so the ambition James is warning against was the natural ambition of any capable man.
The three pictures are all about small things steering big ones. A bit in a horse's mouth is a few inches of metal; the rudder of a grain freighter carrying hundreds of tons from Egypt to Rome is a paddle at the stern, turned by one man, and those ships really did drive before hard winds.
The fire picture is regional. The hills of Palestine dry out to tinder by late summer, and a scrub fire started by a spark takes a whole hillside. Everyone had seen one.
The spring picture is regional too. Some springs in that country run sweet and others run bitter or brackish, and a village's life depended on knowing which was which. A single spring giving both was unthinkable — which is exactly the abnormality James is naming in the mouth that blesses God and curses men.
What it meant to them
The hearers wanted the platform, and James tells them the platform carries a stricter judgment. That alone would have thinned the field.
Then he separates two kinds of wisdom by their fruit rather than their cleverness. One produces envy and selfish ambition and the disorder that follows; the other is peaceable, gentle, open to reason — a test a congregation could apply on the spot to the men wanting to lead it.
Sources cited
- Alfred Edersheim, Sketches of Jewish Social Life
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on James 3. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.