With eight intertwining muscles and over 2,000 taste buds, the tongue is the only muscle working independently from our skeleton. Its appearance provides clues about our health. As James clearly elucidates, our tongue also reflects our spiritual health, being a force for good or evil.

I wonder how often you regret something you’ve said and wish you could retract a comment or email or gossip from the coffee room. Perhaps you’ve been the recipient of harmful innuendo or backstabbing stories, or been tempted through the impure speech of another. 

The tongue is powerful. Metaphors of a horse’s bit (v 3) or a ship’s rudder (v 4) illustrate how one small mistake with our tongue can change the direction of another’s life. Whereas we have initial control over what we say, once it’s left our mouth, the damage becomes uncontrollable, like a forest fire set alight from a tiny spark (vs 5,6). 

What comes from our mouth reflects our inner life, the place where we seek to nurture holy lives in the image of Christ. Yet it’s easy to bless others in one moment, then cause untold harm in the next (vs 9,10). We all make mistakes (v 2), but let’s take the rudder and hold firm against worldly winds and steer the course of blessing and praise.

Dear Lord and Father of mankind, / forgive our foolish ways’.¹

What can be missed about this passage, with its vivid teaching on the power of the tongue, is its context (vs 1,2): it is addressed to aspiring teachers in the community. Teachers usually make significant use of their tongues so, although this teaching is also broadened to ‘anyone’ (v 2, NASB), perhaps the message here is being particularly applied by James to those who would teach.

The familiar analogies in verses 3–5 emphasise the power of the tongue and the destructive impact words can have. The tongue’s influence is not just confined to the impact on others, because it also has a profound influence on the person speaking the words (v 6). Regardless of the remarkable things that humans have achieved in taming wild animals, the tongue remains to be tamed (vs 7,8). Despite our best efforts, we still find that our tongue will be praising God one moment and, the very next moment, speaking words that have the potential to destroy another human (vs 9,10). James is clear that this should not be and that, just as nature can only produce what is true to its nature, so Christians should only produce words true to that nature (vs 11,12). 

We all know that words can damage another and some of us have been deeply wounded by others’ words. The good news is that, by the power of the Holy Spirit, these wounds can be healed and that there is forgiveness for those who recognise that their tongues have hurt another. For those in need of healing, we may need the support and prayers of someone we trust. For those who need forgiveness: have we asked Jesus to forgive – and might we need to go to another and ask for their forgiveness for the words we have used?

‘May these words of my mouth … be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.’² This is the only remedy for the power of the tongue. 

¹ JG Whittier, 1807–92  ² Ps 19:14