James 3:6-12 meaning

James 3:6-12 continues James's comparison of the tongue (what we say) to a burning fire.

And the tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity; the tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of our life, and is set on fire by hell (v 6).

James makes the analogy clear, that the tongue is a fire (v 6). It is capable of great harm. He also calls it the very world of iniquity (v 6). The tongue by itself is something where iniquity (sin) can thrive. It can trigger a chain reaction of problems, being set among our members, the other parts of our body, as that which defiles the entire body (v 6). To defile something is to ruin it, to make it unclean. The one tiny piece affecting the whole, like a bit or a rudder. And in this case, affecting the entire body to a negative end, defiling it.

The tongue sets on fire the course of our life (v 6). How we live, how our life proceeds, is greatly affected by what we say. Our life can be set on fire and destroyed depending on how we speak. James caps off the fire analogy by going to the ultimate fire, the fires of God's judgment: and is set on fire by hell (v 6). Here the tongue itself is set on fire by hell (v 6). The word translated hell is actually "Gehenna."

"Gehenna" is a Greek transliteration of "Hinnom Valley" in Hebrew, a valley outside of Jerusalem which, in the first century, was used as the city garbage dump and sewer, where fires would burn the trash left there. In the idolatrous days of the ancient kingdom of Judah, the valley of Gehenna (called "Topheth" in 2 Kings 23:10) was used as a location for child sacrifice to the pagan god Moloch. "Gehenna" appears twelve times in the New Testament. Gehenna, and similar descriptions, are frequently used to portray the weighty consequences for a believer's sinful deeds, the failure to receive reward and instead to be punished.

James seems to be painting a picture that the evil worked by the tongue leads to this kind of severe judgment, that it is set on fire by hell (Gehenna), meaning that it is like a burning carcass or piece of trash in Gehenna, producing foul toxic results that are unpleasant and harmful. Judgment is a big theme in James's letter; not the judgment of going to hell or heaven, but the judgment specifically that believers will face when we stand before Jesus's throne (James 2:12-13, 5:9, 12). James is hammering the importance of both saying and doing the will of God, not choosing one over the other (only faith, or only works).

Here he is addressing how much it matters to speak the truth with love, because the tongue is naturally a source of sin, destruction, and hypocrisy. James's finer point in this chapter seems directed at teachers (James 3:1), to bring awareness that we should listen only to those who speak the truth as well as practice it. Perhaps also with these dramatic descriptions of how dangerous the tongue is, and its association with sin and judgment fire, James sought to convict or even scare off any would-be false teachers hearing his letter.

The negative effects produced by the tongue is clearly something James wanted to get clear into his audience's minds. He continues to analogize and elaborate on just how wary we should be of what we say:

For every species of beasts and birds, of reptiles and creatures of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by the human race. But no one can tame the tongue; it is a restless evil and full of deadly poison (vv 7-8).

Now James uses an illustration involving all created living things, of every species of beasts and birds--land animals and animals which fill the air--of reptiles--cold-blooded, scaled creatures that crawl on the ground--and creatures of the sea--the whales and fish and all other kinds of ocean-based living things. God has created an incredible variety of creatures, spanning hundreds of thousands to millions (if we count insects, etc.) of species. Yet every animal is tamed and has been tamed by the human race. The word translated tamed is the Greek "damazō," which can also be translated "curb" or "restrain."

Some animals have been domesticated to the point of living in our homes or our backyards. And any animal can be captured, put in a cage, and live beneath the power of the human who has mastered it. During James's life, there were tigers and lions in the pits of the colosseum. In our modern age, we have vast zoos of all animal life. We have theme parks where entertainment involves the performance of trained sea animals such as the enormous and deadly killer whale. The human race stands above and beyond every species of other created life. But James is not bragging on humans. He uses this description of our power to master and control living animals to contrast the one thing that man cannot tame. But, he writes, to signal the contrast, no one, no human, can tame the tongue (v 8).

We cannot tame the tongue. In this analogy, James is again describing the tongue as something that stands apart, as though it were its own unique kind of living thing among the species of beasts and birds, etc. which God has created. The tongue is the one exception which cannot be tamed. Earlier he described that the tongue by itself is a fire. It is its very own world of iniquity, sufficient to itself as a source of evil.

This sets the tongue apart from ourselves, metaphorically. The tongue is of course literally a part of our bodies and is a muscle which we use to eat and speak. But to emphasize just how damaging and out of control the tongue is, James ascribes a quality to it that it stands alone, it moves of its own will, and we cannot fully control it as we can tame and subjugate the animals on the earth. This is similar to Paul's assertion in Romans that when he sins, he is acting against his own desires:

"But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good. So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not."
(Romans 7:16-18)

Here Paul asserts that since he is a new creation in Christ, his remaining sin nature is like an inner foreign agent working against his will (2 Corinthians 5:17). Putting this together with James's assertions, the tongue is naturally connected to the sin nature and accordingly will sin. This tells us that the flesh cannot be reformed, which Paul affirms. This is why the answer is to set the flesh aside. As James asserted in James 1:21, the answer is not to reform the flesh but to set it aside and replace it with God's word.

James describes the tongue as a restless evil and full of deadly poison (v 8). The image of a serpent comes to mind. Tongues, like snakes, are full of deadly poison. The black mamba is full of deadly poison, its venom can kill an elephant, and it is also the fastest snake in the world, slithering up to 12 miles per hour.

Our tongue is connected to our flesh and is similar, and yet worse. James calls it a restless evil. Eventually a snake runs out of energy. But our tongues are restless. As James asserted in James 1:9-11, 14-16, temptation does not come from circumstances, but from within ourselves, from the lusts of our natural man, what Paul calls the flesh. This flesh is relentless and only pursues evil.

Something that is evil should already be treated with caution, but an evil thing that is also restless is even more dangerous. It is always twitching, teeming with too much energy, always ready to lash out and harm someone with its deadly poison. The tongue, connected to our flesh, is a constant source of menace to our Christian walk.

James shows the double nature of the tongue:

With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God; (v 9).

The tongue is of course capable of being used to speak good things: With it we bless our Lord and Father. James is writing to Jewish believers who know God their Father and trust in Jesus His Son as their Messiah. By writing we and our James includes himself, writing something true of all believers. We bless our Lord and Father. We praise Him, we speak gratitude.

God is Lord of our lives as believers and our Father who created us and adopted us into His family (Romans 8:14-19, John 1:12, Galatians 3:26). We bless Him with our tongue, singing His praises and thanking Him for His goodness toward us. But then, we use the same instrument, our tongue, to curse men, the opposite of a blessing. To bless is to speak goodness over someone, while to curse is to wish harm or evil on them.

God receives our blessings, and then we curse our fellow men. But men have been made in the likeness of God (v 9). From the beginning of time in the earliest scripture, during the creation account, God declares that He is creating man in His own image (Genesis 1:26-27). We are a special creation that resembles God, whom God made to raise up to authority to rule over creation and silence His enemies (Hebrews 2:7-8, Psalm 8:5-6). For more on God's reason for creating humans, see our article "Why Did God Create Humanity, and What is Our Divine Purpose?" To James's point, when we curse other men, we are cursing God's image-bearers, those who have been made in the likeness of God (v 9).

The believer who acts piously, praising God, speaking highly of Him, while treating other people with cruelty or disregard is not living as a faithful witness, and will be judged by God accordingly. That was true in the first century and it is true today. James already took this type of hypocritical believer to task who says to "a brother or sister…without clothing and in need of daily food…'Go in peace, be warmed and be filled…'" James asks this dismissive kind of person, "yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?" (James 2:14-15).

In that example, the believer is using their tongue to say empty niceties without acting on them. But even that is a form of cursing other men, by only speaking the good but then refusing to do the good (James 4:17). To say something good but not act on it is a bad action which God rejects.

Earlier, James rebuked the discrimination happening in the churches to which he is writing, where the rich members were given the best seats and the poor were made to sit on the ground during assembly (James 2:1-6). There too James showed his readers they were not only mistreating other believers, but were dishonoring God's name as well: “Do they not blaspheme the fair name by which you have been called?” (James 2:7). In all of these examples, James is attacking hypocrisy and guiding his readers toward living with integrity and consistency.

As James has now asserted numerous times, all our actions will be judged. Therefore, it is an urgent matter to set aside wickedness, replace it with God's word, and act upon that word both in our speech as well as our actions (James 1:21).

Our natural bent is to be terribly inconsistent with our speech. James makes clear what he is describing: from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing (v 10). Here James equates the tongue with the mouth. They represent the same thing: what we say. The same source, the same mouth, is issuing a good thing and a bad thing, a blessing for some and a cursing for others.

He states plainly that something is wrong with this picture: My brethren, these things ought not to be this way (v 10).

James addresses his readers as My brethren, calling their attention to his evaluation of hypocrisy often found in our speech. It is also again a reminder for us that James is writing to believers about their sin. He is not condemning non-believers for not believing. Unbelievers cannot be hypocritical. They are already living outside of the truth and are not reconciled with God. But we who believe in Christ are called to live out our faith, and when we say one thing and do another, we are hypocrites.

So James urges his believing brethren to see that it is wrong to speak evil toward others while praising God. He wants us to understand that what we say matters. Hypocrisy and a failure to integrate our faith with our actions/speech (to have integrity) are big themes throughout this letter. The tongue's tendency is toward evil, according to James's multiple analogies on the subject. He offers several more analogies to show how the tongue is capable of good but inclined to evil. He points this out so that believers can be attentive and make better choices:

Does a fountain send out from the same opening both fresh and bitter water? (v 11).

James's illustrations come to an even finer point here. A fountain can mean a spring or a well, where fresh water flows. The word for fresh literally means "sweet," in contrast to bitter water. By bitter water, James means salty water, which is not fit for drinking. Drinking saltwater to quench thirst can be deadly.

But this illustration is slightly different from the earlier ones, which described the widespread effect of the tongue, its power, the damage it does. Here, the analogy points to something that cannot be. A fountain does not send out from the same opening both fresh and bitter water (v 11). A spring in the mountains provides freshwater; you won't find salty water coming from that fountain. The flow of water will always be consistent with its source. The effect is consistent with the cause.

Similarly, Can a fig tree, my brethren, produce olives, or a vine produce figs? Nor can salt water produce fresh (v 12).

In this illustration, the source is a fig tree. James asks his believing brethren, again highlighting what he is about to say and drawing their close attention. Imagine a fig tree. Can it produce olives? No, fig trees do not produce olives. Olive trees produce olives. James asks, can a vine produce figs? No, fig trees produce figs. A vine produces grapes. Nor can salt water produce fresh (v 12). The tide does not wash in fresh, sweet water. It is only salt water, because its source is the ocean. God created the world with laws of cause and effect that are not violated.

But the tongue does produce both sweet and fresh, blessings and cursings. It should not. God's design is for the tongue to produce blessing. But the Fall has caused the tongue to be tainted. James just listed natural cause-and-effect, asking rhetorical questions whether trees can bear fruit contrary to their nature, or water sources produce water contrary to their nature. The answer for these questions is “No.” But, although the human tongue was not intended to produce bad, due to sin it can produce good or bad.

And as James assessed earlier, My brethren, these things ought not to be this way (v 10). Sin is not natural. It is an intruder. God's design was for all things to work in harmony--to be at peace. The word "righteousness" carries with it the idea of all things working according to their design. Our job as believers is to fight back against the fallen state of things through a walk of faithful obedience. And a major way believers can do this is through diligence in what we say and how we speak.

The tongue, capable of burning down our lives, of spreading poison, is not intended for evil. It is a fountain designed to produce fresh water, yet it sometimes flows salty water. And it ought not to be this way (v 10). All of sin ought not to be this way (v 10). Sin is error, it is anything out of step with God's will and design. He designed us to love one another, not to curse each other (Galatians 5:13-15, Ephesians 4:31-32).

At the start of this chapter, before his meditations on the tongue, James wrote, "Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment" (James 3:1). The teacher's primary tool is his tongue, his means of communication. What he communicates is very important.

This theme runs deeper the further back we look. James 2 excoriated the hypocrisy among the believers he was writing to, those who were treating some believers as less important than others, or were boasting of faith without acting on their faith. This kind of hypocrisy and disorder comes from sin (James 3:16), from the failure to act upon what God has taught us to do. But some were apparently teaching that such hypocrisy was permissible.

In Chapter 2, James rebuked someone who he knew would argue with his teaching. He knew someone would push back against him with their own foolish words (James 2:18-19). He knew that his corrective wisdom would be challenged by men who do not want to put their faith to work.

It seems probable that James is dealing with a church community led by men of influence who promote sinful, hypocritical ideas. They practice partiality and permit the mistreatment of impoverished believers. They seem to teach that it is perfectly fine to boast about faith but to never act on it, which James ridicules by giving an illustration in which one believer wishes a suffering believer "Good luck!" without actually helping them in their needs. Perhaps this was a real situation among others which James had learned of, where the influential members of this church were only talking and never helping. And were pretending that God approved of pious inaction. They are preaching armchair philosophy, a false view that is acceptable to never act on our faith.

This is why James warns against too many teachers leading this body of believers, before emphasizing the damaging effects of the human tongue. James is warning against bad teachers leading the believers astray. He seems to be urging them to remember how flawed we are and how prone we are to speak wrongly, so that any calling to teach the word of God should be considered carefully. James's audience is dealing with people who have created a culture of worldly hierarchy and a lack of mercy (James 2:13).

This congregation (or congregations) needs to be discerning about who is teaching them. They need to avoid listening to or following false teaching. This is the duty of each believer, to test those who teach. The passages that deal with examining the fruit of believers often apply to identifying and avoiding false teachers (Matthew 7:15-20, 2 Peter 2:1, Acts 20:28-31, Galatians 1:6-9, Titus 1:10-11).

Believers should be careful and discerning when deciding who to listen to. Which is why in the following passage, James will set aside analogies and show more directly who should be leading these believers.

He will begin with the question, "Who among you is wise and understanding?" (James 3:13). Who among you knows the truth and does it? Who is on their way to becoming the perfect ("mature," "complete") man (James 3:2) who has bridled his tongue and uses it to guide others toward truth, not disorder? James's readers will once again need to consider integrity. They need to self-reflect and examine their own integrity or lack thereof. Who has integrated their actions with their words? Who is putting their faith to work? This is the goal of the witness of the faithful believer, to walk in integrity.

Believers are new creations in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17). Each believer is indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, each believer should strive to have words of truth, grace, and love streaming from the fountain of their speech. When we follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, when God's word transplants and takes the place of our wicked desires, this is a sign of a mature faith and a walk in godly rather than worldly wisdom.