James 3
King James Version (KJV)
3 My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation.
2 For 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.3 Behold, we put bits in the horses' mouths, that they may obey us; and we turn about their whole body.
4 Behold also the ships, which though they be so great, and are driven of fierce winds, yet are they turned about with a very small helm, whithersoever the governor listeth.
5 Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!
6 And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.
7 For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind:
8 But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.
9 Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God.
10 Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be.
11 Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?
12 Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? either a vine, figs? so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh.
13 Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom.
14 But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth.
15 This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.
16 For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.
17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.
18 And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.
1. V.2 If I could be strong enough to control what I say then I could control anything in my flesh! Wow. The tongue is the easiest member to lose hold over and let it get out of control.
ReplyDelete2. V.9-12 My tongue is a further extension of my double mindedness and wavering. I like how Paul refers back to his point in chapter 1 about an unstable man. In verse 13 ,he also refers back saying a wise man is known by 1. His conversation (behavior and tongue) and 2. his works (faith and works ch.2)
3. V.13-18 I often chase after earthly, human wisdom which God calls devilish. Heavenly wisdom on the other hand is pure, peaceable, etc, without hypocrisy. When I find myself being a hypocrite, it's because I'm chasing the wrong kind if wisdom.
James 3
ReplyDelete1. V. 2-14 We all struggle with our tongue. We all sin with our tongue. The Bible says only a perfect man does not sin with his tongue. I admit, I struggle more than most with the things I say. God please control me!
2. Man has been able to control some crazy things...but can't control the tongue. Fire destroys fiercely and deadly poison can kill in seconds. That's what God compares our tongues to! There is so much power held in the tongue (power both for good and for evil). Let's be yielded to His Spirit and allow him use our words for good.
2. V. 13-18 There is such a clear contrast between the worlds wisdom and God's wisdom. For one, what if we applied God's wisdom in the area of being easily intreated. A teachable spirit does not come naturally. Having a teachable spirit and controlling my tongue are two of the hardest things for me. Those are marks of pride.
James 3
ReplyDelete1. V. 6 The tongue is so little, but it can cause great damage. Just a little spark of gossip(slander/speaking hatefully/ect), and there is a huge fire. It may seem insignificant at first, but in the end it leads to a big mess. The tongue controls your actions.
2. V. 5 The tongue is powerful. With my tongue I have the ability to cut-down, destroy, hate, and back-bite. On the other hand though, I can use my tongue to build others us, encourage, love, and show Christ. The choice is mine.
3. V 16 "Where there is envying and strife, then is confusion and every evil work". When I harbor bitterness or jealousy towards someone, I won't be at rest. My life won't be peaceful and most of my actions towards(or words about) that person will come out of bitterness. Despite what they have done, I need to learn to let it go and to forgive; only then will I have peace.
V 3-5) These verses talk about the tongue. It is amazing how such a large object; such as a ship can be driven by something so small. We must think before we act. Our tongue controls everything because that is how we communicate to one another. We must be able to think before we speak and when we're about to speak, think some more.
ReplyDeleteV 7-8) Again, these verses are talking about the tongue. God paid our price, even though we did nothing to ever deserve such a gift. When a parent is raising a child, they raise them in the best way the parent sees fit and hope that the child will represent the family. This should be our goal as Christian. God, our father, forgave us of our sins and we cannot even our Him with our tongues. This is just a reminder to me that I need to represent God and the tongue must be the first to get under control.
V 15-17) These verses really speak to me because I'm in school. Why do you people go to school? To get a better job. Why do they want a better job? To make more money. That's what it really comes down to. And I must remember that God comes first, I must have my priorities straight and everything else will fall into place.
vv. 7-8 It's crazy how man can basically tame any creature, but we cannot tame our own tongues. "It is an unruly evil."
ReplyDeletevv. 9-10 The sad thing is that the same member that we use to praise our Savior with is the same one we use to slander other people especially other Christians.
V6 Imagine the angels throwing a party when someone receives Christ. Now imagine demons throwing a party when we gossip. "The tongue is set on fire of hell." Convicting.
ReplyDeleteV16 The word confusion stood out to me. Sometimes I feel confused about what to do in a particular situation. I had never linked it to my sin of envy. I am a very envious person by nature. I envy people who have it all together. Whose kids never throw fits and whose houses are always sparkling and whose jeans have always been a size 2. Lord, give me victory in this area!
V17 Wisdom from above is gentle and full of mercy. Any "wisdom" I have to offer that does not conform to these traits is not from above and does not please the Lord.
Haha love your second point! So true. That verse was the verse that God used to get ahold of me when we were in Utah on the missions trip. Leading up to it I was so confused and couldn't figure it out. Once I confessed the sin of envy to God, He began to work on me on another level
DeleteV9-10 "With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers these things ought not to be so." Recently I was talking with a friend about this. He said, "We only like people that we find attractive and bash anyone we don't. If only we could see people as the beautiful creation of God and love people we perceive unattractive. Maybe then we wouldn't be so quick to gossip and belittle others.
ReplyDeleteV14-16 "But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice." Ouch. This hit home for me. So many times my motives are selfish even when serving or praising Jesus. Its hard enough for me to admit this but the bible says its demonic.
V18 "And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace." The verse before said that selfish ambition and jealousy brings froth disorder. But a life of righteousness brings peace.
1. V. 8 if I could learn how to control my tongue and use it for good (think before I speak) it'd be better for me, for God, for others, and for my testimony
ReplyDelete2. V.10 it just stuck out to me that with the very mouth and tongue God gave us we either use it for Him and to bless and edify others with, but in a split second we use it to curse God and defy each other like the last part said this should not be so
3. V.17 it just stood out, that if we seek God's wisdom we, and our words will have the same charactistics as Him and His words. We'll be more like Him. Just something to dwell on.
Love all your points Rachel! Especially your last one. Reminds me of the message in youth group wednesday about how when you get to know God, then you can be more like him.
DeleteV2-3 This tells me that if I can control what I say, then I also have the power to control any of my body's other actions. It basically indirectly tells of how hard the tongue is to control. Verse 3 serves as a good example of this. By putting a bit into the mouth of a house, we not only control the mouth of the house, but the entire body.
ReplyDeleteV4-5 This starts off with the analogy of how ships, which can be so huge, are still controlled by a tiny helm, or the wheel. Verse 5 tells how that's just like our tounges. Though they are so small, they possess such a large influence in our lives. If the ship is our life, and the helm our tounges, then we could be the strongest, most powerful people on earth and still be in bondage to what we say. That's kinda scary. Makes me want to honor Christ with what I say.
V10-12 This tells of how we act all righteous and all that when we're using our tounges to honor and praise God, but we use the same mouth to insult and slander (or as our in the verse "curse") other people, who were in fact made in the likeness of Christs' image.to me that just hit me hard as an angle that I've never thought of before. It really doesn't make sense. We should use our mouths to first honor Christ, and then encourage others. We should really just use our mouths to be nice to one another, as simple as that sounds.
This whole chapter was just very interesting. I hope that I'm to apply these things to my everyday life to bring honor and glory to Christ Jesus.
Wow Seth, I love your third point. It is really hard to control our tongues sometimes.
DeleteJames 3
ReplyDelete1. vs.5-6: The word "fire" is mention 4 times in these two verses. Repetition of words usually means to stress a point. This passage follows a chronological sequence...first the small muscle of a tongue starts a fire. As it grows it becomes bigger and full of iniquity. Before we know it, our whole bodies are engulfed in sin, and then destruction is to follow. I need to be careful and consciously aware about what comes out of my mouth. How does it affect my life and the lives of those around me??
2. vs.11: Our mouth's are like fountains and it's kind of ridiculous what we let flow out of them sometimes. I want to focus on sending out sweet water when I open my mouth to talk. I want to be God's fountain.
3. vs.16: In sin, there is no peace and nothing makes sense. 1 Corinth. 14:33 says that "For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace..." Who would want to live a life of confusion? Praise the Lord for His peace. I don't want evil and sin, but the peace that passeth all understanding.
(1.) Vs.2-14 if we could just control our tongue we would be better off! I believe controlling the tongue is one of the hardest things to do!
ReplyDelete(2.) Vs.15-16 this wisdom in these verses are not Godly, but this wisdom is still good! We just have to be careful to guard our heart through this wisdom! It's good in the sense that we know what kind of wisdom not to look for!
(3.) vs. 17-18 the wisdom found in these verses are wise and show you what to look for! All wisdom comes from God whether good or "bad". You take both the good and the bad and learn from it to live a life for God.
Vs. 6) the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. Our tongue has such a great impact on people around us. We need to be consciously aware of what we say.
ReplyDeleteVs. 10) Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be. What you say comes from your heart. I constantly have to ask myself. Are the words I just spoke lovely, righteous, Godly, and pure. Is my heart pure. As Christians, what we say should be truthful, kind, and loving.
Vs. 17) Sometimes, just stopping to ask for wisdom from God would be the best thing to do. I want to have righteous wisdom that is peaceable and gentle.
V8 I find in my devotions in general recently how God keeps bringing me back to His "help" for us. Its so simple to attempt to want to change and not say specific words with specific association to bad things but ultimately God tells us it is only through Him that we can overcome this.
ReplyDeleteV11-12 in these verses He shows us that by our sinful nature we are predetermined to fail at this. So only by our transformed nature and His empowerment can we really dare to change at all.
V13-17 talks about all the wisdom that comes first from above and then we see all the fruits and characteristics of the people who derive their wisdom of speech from godly things. I love how the last couple verses are almost like check points to analize what direction our words are taking.
Wonderful chapter I needed this.
Great points! I like the second especially. Only by Him! Thanks for posting!
DeleteThe second verse 2 really speaks to me. It should challenge us to get a hold of our tongues! When we learn to control our tongue, we demonstrate a level of self control. According to verse 2 that same self control will help us bridle the rest of our body.
ReplyDeleteVerses 7-8... I think about all the shows that follow some guy out in the wild trying to get along with wild animals. "He's the bear whisperer..... This other guy is part of wolf pack..." But at the end of the day, if there is one wild beast worth taming, it's your own tongue! Instead of "Man vs Wild" it should "Man vs tongue" :P
Verses 9-10... We can use our tongue for good or evil. I think it's interesting that it says that we can curse men which are made are made after the similitude of God. When you curse at someone else you are cursing at someone made in the image of Almighty God.
Haha "man vs tongue"! Love it! Thanks for posting man!
Delete1.Wow! What an impact my words can have on individuals. The tongue is like a "fire" that cannot be suppressed without God's help. How can we praise God and then with the same mouth curse the ones around us?
ReplyDelete2. A tiny spark can burn an entire forest such as the tongue can destroy a whole person. If we are out in public for example and are saying things that would not please God it could be a HUGE hindrance for non-believers. How would we look any different from non believers? (Matt. 12:33-36)
3.Gods wisdom is pure and righteous. We should learn to think differently from the worldly wisdom we know, and gain godly wisdom.
Loved reading this chapter! I pray God will constantly remind and help me to control the things I say. *Psalm 19:14
Awesome! You said it well. The biggest hinderance to the church is the hypocritical Christians. Let's not talk like unbelievers.
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