“Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. 14 But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. 15 Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil. 16 For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.
17 But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. 18 Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness.” James 3:14-18
We’ve been looking for the last week at James’ warnings about the tongue in chapter 3. He concludes the chapter with a passage on wisdom and the final charge describes peacemakers.
Here’s the thing — peaceful words are sometimes “fighting words.” If a woman tells me her husband is abusing her, whether with words or with fists, wisdom dictates I speak. If my daughter were to act like a fool and refuse to study for her AP Environmental test because it involves reading about “oozing sludge” — well, frankly, I wouldn’t blame her, but you get the picture — if our children persist in doing life their own way, some strong words would be wise.
The best resource I know on what it means to pursue love boldly is Dan Allender and Tremper Longman’s book Bold Love. They make it clear that love isn’t necessarily nice. Read these excerpts of his passage on “Good Words”:
“To bless is to give words of life that nourish the soul and deepen its desire for truth. Words offer grace to our enemy and ask God the Father for grace that benefits our enemy.”
Dan reminds us that the fact that it is difficult to think of the right words in the moment is not an excuse for not seeking them:
“Before entering a war, we need to enter the heavenly realm, asking for help. We are to pray to the Father to act on behalf of our enemies; we are to pray for God to work in our enemies’ lives, to restrain evil, to deepen consciousness of harm, to destroy their arrogance so that life and grace may flourish. We are equally to pray for wisdom and all that blocks the development of wisdom in our life.” Dan Allender, Bold Love
A Fascinating Exercise: Read through Proverbs and write down every reference to how to use our tongue. (You will notice they don’t all agree:). Then pray about what wisdom looks like in a difficult situation.
