1. The Call for the Wise Man. 3:13a
“Who is wise and understanding among you?” (τίς σοφὸς καὶ ἐπιστήμον ἐν ὑμῖν;). The question does not mean that nobody is wise and understanding, but it calls a halt on the rush of volunteers who have apparently a superfluity of wisdom. An overplus of conceit is intolerable for normal persons. Job (12:2) has our sympathy when he retorts to his officious advisers: “No doubt but ye are the people and wisdom will die with you.” Once more Job (28:12) asks: “But where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding?” Here, as very often in the Old Testament, we have wisdom and understanding used together. God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding (1 Kings 4:29). “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom, and get understanding” (Prov. 4:7). In Psa. 107:43 we have the question: “Who is wise?” (τίς σοφός;). James is thoroughly acquainted with the wisdom literature of the Jews, both canonical and uncanonical, and is at home in the handling of this theme. His words are not many, but they carry much of depth and power.
Many of the professional wise men, then as now, were frauds who easily duped the gullible populace. They were magicians like Simon Magus, who gave it out that he was some great man, and the idle crowd took him at his high estimate of himself (Acts 8:9ff.). Note also the case of Barjesus (Acts 13:8ff.) and the Jewish exorcists (19:13ff.). The success of these men is one of the most humiliating contemplations about our common humanity. Carlyle bluntly called most people fools. But there were really wise men then also, like the Magi and others, who sought light and truth. Oesterley thinks that James by this question appeals to the self-respect of his hearers, who are tired of men with “the lust of teaching and talking” (Plummer). James is still directing blows at sham religion, and there is ample cause for such attacks in all the ages. Hypocrisy flourishes in all ages and in all climes. It has a marvelous vitality, this meanest of parasites.
The combination of “wise” (σοφός) and “understanding” (ἐπιστήμων) is not without point (cf. Deut. 4:6; Isa. 5:21). This is the only instance of the combination in the New Testament. In classic Greek the second word was used of a skilled or scientific person who had gained technical knowledge of a subject. It implies personal acquaintance and experience, not mere abstract knowledge or intellectual apprehension of the theory of a thing. It is book-learning plus practical application as opposed to one without this special training. Then the word for wise is given by Clement of Alexandria (Strom. I. v.) to mean “the understanding of things human and divine, and their causes.” It is the word found in the term “philosophy” and implies thoughtfulness, penetration, grasp of the relations of things, and the right use of one’s knowledge for the highest ends.1 There are, forsooth, learned fools, men who have a lumber of learning in their heads, but in a disorderly jumble. In the use of James the only really wise man is he who places God in the center of his life, who serves Christ as Lord and Master, who keeps the intellect in subjection to the will of God. There are plenty of ignorant fools also, men who have neither intellectual apprehension nor practical wisdom. It is hard to tell which is the sadder spectacle, the learned fool or the ignorant fool. But certainly a premium is not to be placed upon either class. Both classes of fools are to be kept out of the ranks of teachers and preachers if it can be done. Advice on all sorts of subjects is so plentiful that there seems to be an abundance of easygoing wisdom. But the world is still eager to listen to the True Wise Man if he can be found (cf. Van Dyke’s “Other Wise Man”). But the very reputation for wisdom may lead to posing as a wise man. James dares to challenge the candidates for teachers of wisdom in the churches. Is it not possible that not enough care is taken in the choice of teachers in the churches and the ordination of preachers of the gospel?
2. The Proof of the Wise Man. 3:13b
Wisdom is not a matter for mere technical inquiry. One has to stand an examination on wisdom; but it is that of life, unwritten and written; that of deeds, not of words. “Let him show by his good life his works in meekness of, wisdom” (δειξάτω ἐκ τῆς καλῆς ἀναστροφῆς τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ ἐν πραύτητι σοφίας). This test of the wise man is put in a peculiarly Jacobean style. The very position of the word “show” is emphatic, the first word in the sentence. if one may use the vernacular, we are all “from Missouri” and “have to be shown” when it comes to each other’s wisdom. The test is the acid test of deeds, not words. We may quibble over words and talk like a wise man, but time will prove our words by our deeds. One may speak like a wise man and in reality be the biggest sort of a fool, yea, of a scoundrel. People have learned to discount mere talk when it stands alone. Just being a preacher is not enough. One must practice what he preaches. The Roman Catholic doctrine relieves the priest from the obligation to live the morality which he preaches, but surely that is a travesty on the ethics of Christianity. It is false ethics and false religion. People have a right to hold the preacher to the standard of the gospel, just as he has the right to urge upon them the highest ideals of conduct. There is a wonderful levelling process going on all the time. Lincoln said with rare wisdom that a man may fool all the people part of the time, and some of the people all the time, but not all the people all the time.
The greatest asset that the preacher has, after all, is his life, a long life of piety and consecration. There is no answering that argument, “by his good life his works.” This is the only proof that counts in the lone run. The King James Version has here “good conversation” (ἐκ τῆς καλῆς ἀναστροφῆς), which was good old English (conversatio, conversari), originally one’s conduct or bearing (turning oneself about, the precise idea in the Greek word).1 But long ago the English confined the word to talk, perhaps because some people did little else but talk. But the quaint old English must give way to the modern preciseness of speech. It is the beautiful (καλός) manner of life that speaks the language of business to-day, the flower of a white life that adorns the profession of the service of Christ. But even so, it must be behaviour that is sincere, that finds expression in acts (ἔργα), not mere external mannerisms, posing, attitudinizing, stage-effect. Nothing is more repulsive than professional pietists who attract attention to themselves rather than to Christ the Lord. It is a case preeminently where actions speak louder than words and where words alone do more harm than good. Bengel puts it tersely: re potius quam verbis. In simple truth the more a man says in claim of superior wisdom the less he is credited with the possession of any wisdom.
But it is not merely a case of deeds versus words, but also of “gentleness and modesty versus arrogance and passion” (Mayor), “in meekness of wisdom” (ἐν πραύτητι σοφίας), “with the modesty of wisdom” (Moffatt). Meekness was not ranked high among the Greeks. Aristotle (Eth. Nic. IV. v.) considered it a second-rate virtue, “the mean between passionateness and impassionateness” (Plummer). Epictetus (Bk. II, chap. i, § 36) says: “But think that thou art nobody and that thou knowest nothing.” The Christian conception rests upon the idea in the Psalms, where meekness is a favorite trait of the devout. “The meek will he guide in judgment; and the meek will he teach his way” (25:9). “The Lord upholdeth the meek” (147:6). In Sirach (3:18) we read: “The greater you are, the more you humble yourself” (ὅσῳ μέγας εἶ, τοσούτῳ ταπεινοῦ σεαυτόν). But there is no word comparable to that of Jesus, who said of himself: “I am meek and lowly in heart” (Matt. 11:29, πραύς εἰμι καὶ ταπεινὸς τῇ καρδίᾳ) in his plea for men to come to him as teacher. It is an essential prerequisite in the teacher, else he is unapproachable and is aloof and cold. Jesus pronounced a beatitude on the meek (Matt. 5:5), but he did more: he exemplified meekness in his life.
By meekness James does not mean effeminacy or weakness (any more than Jesus). He does mean the absence of pretentiousness and willfulness. Peter (1 Pet. 3:15) uses the expression “with meekness and fear” for the spirit with which one is to defend the faith, the “reason for the hope that is in you.” There can be firmness and courage without bumptiousness and bigotry. There are frequent exhortations in the New Testament along this line (cf. Gal. 6:1; 2 Tim. 2:24; 1 Cor. 4:21). The wise man wears the crown of modesty. This spiritual paradox seems absurd to the merely worldly wise.
1 Σοφία ranks highest of all the words for intellectual attainment or endowment (γνῶσις, ἐπίγνωσις, ἐπιστήμη, σύνεσις, φρόνησις).
1 Epictetus (Bk. I, chap. vii, § 2) has it ἀναστροφὴν τὴν (ἐν) αὐτῇ καθήκουσαν. Moulton (Vocabulary, p. 38) notes the absence of the word in this sense in the papyri, though the verb ἀναστρέφεσθαι is common. The substantive is frequent in the inscriptions.
Robertson, A. T. (1915). Practical and Social Aspects of Christianity: The Wisdom of James (pp. 171–176). George H. Doran Company; Hodder & Stoughton. (Public Domain)
A Watch on the Door of the Lips
James 3:1–13
THERE is a recurrence to earlier teaching in James 1:19, 26, which latter verse suggests the figure of the bridle. James has drunk deep into Old Testament teaching as to the solemn worth of speech, and into Christ’s declaration that by their words men will be justified or condemned.
No doubt, Eastern peoples are looser tongued than we Westerns are; but modern life, with its great development of cities and its swarm of newspapers and the like, has heightened the power of spoken and printed words, and made James’s exhortations even more necessary. His teaching here gathers round several images m the bridle, the fire, the untamed creature, the double fountain. We deal with these in order.
I. No Doubt, In The Infant Church, With Its Flexible Organization, There Were Often Scenes Very Strange To Our Eyes,
Such as Paul hints at in 1 Corinthians 14:26–33, where many voices of would-be teachers contended for a hearing. James would check that unwholesome eagerness by the thought that teachers who do not practice what they preach will receive a heavier judgment than those who did not set up to be instructors. He humbly classes himself with the teachers. The ‘for’ of James 3:2 introduces a reason for the advice in James 3:1—since it is hard to avoid falls, and harder in respect to speech than action, it is a dangerous ambition to be a teacher.
That thought leads on to the series of considerations as to the government of the tongue. He who can completely keep it under command is a ‘perfect’ man, because the difficulty of doing so is so great that the attainment of it is a test of perfection. James is like the Hebrew prophets, in that he does not so much argue as illustrate. His natural speech is imagery, and here he pours out a stream of it. The horse’s bridle and the ship’s rudder may be taken together as both illustrating the two points that the tongue guides the body, and that it is intended that the man should guide the tongue. These two ideas are fused together here. The bridle is put into the mouth, and what acts on the mouth influences the direction of the horse’s course. The rudder is but a little bit of wood, but its motion turns the great ship, even when driven by wild winds. ‘So the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things,’ which boasting is not false, for the whole point of the passage is that that little member has large power.
Is it true, as James says, that it governs our actions as the bridle does the horse, or the rudder the ship? No doubt, many sins go straight from the inner chambers of the heart’s desires out into the world of action without going round by the way of speech; but still, if we think of the immense power of our own words and of others in setting our activities in motion, of the dreadful harvest of sin which has often sprung from one tempting word, of the ineffaceable traces of pollution which some vile book leaves in memory and heart, of the good and evil which have been wrought by spoken or printed words, and that never more truly than to-day, when a flood of talk all but drowns the world, we shall not think James exaggerating in the awful weight he gives to speech as the mother of action.
His other point is that this guiding power needs guidance. A firm yet gentle hand touches the rein, and the sensitive mouth yields to the light pressure. The steerman’s hand pushes or draws the tiller an inch from or towards him, and the huge vessel yaws accordingly. Speech is often loose. Most men set less careful watch on the door of their lips than of their actions; but it would be wiser to watch the inner gate, which leads from thought to speech, than the outer one, which leads from speech to act. Idle words, rash words, unconsidered words, free-flowing words, make up much of our conversation. ‘His tongue ran away with him’ is too often true. It is hard but possible, and it is needful, to guide the helm, to keep a tight hand on the reins.
II. The Next Figure Is That Of The Fire, Suggested By The Illustration Of The Small Spark Which Sets A Great Forest Ablaze.
Drop a match or a spark from a locomotive or a pipe in the prairie grass, and we know what comes. The illustration was begun to carry on the contrast between the small member and its great results; but James catches fire, and goes off after the new suggestion, ‘The tongue is a fire.’
Our space forbids discussing the interpretation of the difficult James 3:6, but the general bearing of it is clear. It reiterates under a fresh figure the thought of the preceding verses as to the power of the tongue to set the whole body in motion. Only the imagery is more lurid, and suggests more fatal issues from an unhallowed tongue’s influence. It ‘defileth the whole body.’ Foul speech, heard in schools or places of business, read in filthy books, heard in theatres, has polluted many a young life, and kindled fires which have destroyed a man, body and soul. Speech is like the axle which, when it gets heated, sets the wheel on fire. And what comes of the train then? And what set the axle ablaze? The sulphureous flames from the pit of Gehenna. No man who knows life, especially among young boys and young men, will think that James has lost the government of his tongue in speaking thus.
III. Next Comes The Figure Of The Untamable Wild Beast.
We need not pin James down to literal accuracy any more than to scientific classification in his zoology. His general statement is true enough for his purpose, for man has long ago tamed, and still continues to use as tamed, a crowd of animals of most diverse sorts, fierce and meek, noxious and harmless.
But, says James, in apparent contradiction to himself, there is one creature that resists all such efforts. Then what is the sense of your solemn exhortations, James, if ‘the tongue can no man tame’? In that case he who is able to bridle it must be more than a perfect man. Yes, James believed that, though he says little about it. He would have us put emphasis on ‘no man.’ Man’s impossibilities are Christ’s actualities. So we have here to fall back on James’s earlier word, ‘If any of you lack, let him ask of God, and it shall be given him.’ The position of ‘man’ in the Greek is emphatic, and suggests that the thought of divine help is present to the Apostle.
He adds a characterization of the tongue, which fits in with his image of an untamable brute: ‘It is a restless evil,’ like some caged but unsubdued wild animal, ever pacing uneasily up and down its den; ‘full of deadly poison,’ like some captured rattlesnake. The venom spurted out by a calumnious tongue is more deadly than any snake poison. Blasphemous words, or obscene words, shot into the blood by one swift dart of the fangs, may corrupt its whole current, and there is no Pasteur to expel the virus.
IV. The Last Image, That Of The Fountain, Is Adduced To Illustrate The Strange Inconsistencies Of Men, As Manifested In Their Speech.
Words of prayer and words of cursing come from the same lips. No doubt these hot-tempered, and sometimes ferociously religious, Jewish Christians, to whom James speaks, had some among them whose portraits James is drawing here. ‘Away with such a fellow from the earth!’ is a strange sequel to ‘Blessed be he, the God of our fathers.’ But the combination has often been heard since. Te Deums and anathemas have succeeded one another m strange union, and religious controversy has not always been conducted with perfect regard to James’s precepts.
Of course when the Apostle gibbets the grotesque inconsistency of such a union, he is not to be taken as allowing cursing, if it only keeps clear of ‘blessing God.’ Since the latter is the primary duty of all, and the highest exercise of the great gift of speech, anything inconsistent with it is absolutely forbidden, and to show the inconsistency is to condemn the act. Further, the assertion that ‘salt water cannot yield sweet’ implies that the ‘cursing’ destroys the reality of the verbal ‘blessing God.’ If a man says both, the imprecation is his genuine voice, and the other is mere wind.
The fountain is deeper than the tongue. From the heart are the issues of life. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh, and clear, pure waters will not well out thence unless the heart has been cleansed by Christ entering into it. Only when that tree of life is cast into the waters are they made sweet. When Christ governs us, we can govern our hearts and our lips, and through these our whole bodies and all their activities.
MacLaren, A. (2009). Expositions of Holy Scripture: Hebrews 7–13, James (pp. 431–436). Logos Bible Software. (Public Domain)
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