Philip Dampier's Blog

Chapter 3, Verse 6 “And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell.”

Because of the Greek construction in the middle of the verse there are a variety of opinions among Greek scholars as how to translate this passage. It happens that the ESV does one of the best jobs in its translation and we can look at it rather straight forward. Most of the controversy is over how kosmos is used in the book at this point. The ESV gives the sense that the world is the unrighteous world. This is somewhat a parallel to Luke 16:9.

James appears to be saying that the tongue contains the sins of a fallen world. It is what comes out of the mouth that defiles a person because the mouth speaks what is in the heart. The tongue stains the whole body which is the opposite of the requirement of keeping the body unstained. The tongue is connected here with the idea of hell. Hell is the place of evil. James is saying that hell, that is evil, guides the tongue to set the entire lifestyle on fire. Fire is a weapon of destruction.

Task for Today: Time to take a good look at our tongues. To really be aware of the tongue’s possibilities for personal and world evil. To be reminded that the tongue is unruly and requires God’s help if it is to be controlled. Our tongue must be put on a twenty-four-hour watch and guarded constantly.