This is NOT a suggested way to tame the tongue!
“but no human being can tame the tongue.” James 3:8a. (For the full effect of this blog, please read all of James 3 — it will take you less time than you might spend surfing Facebook:)
A few years ago, my husband and I participated in the excellent Gospel Transformation course by World Harvest Mission. One of the first things we were asked to do was “the tongue exercise.” In this exercise, you tried to go a whole day without “cursing” – that is, without complaining, denigrating, defaming, gossiping or any other sin of the tongue. Within about fifteen minutes I had discovered what a long day it was going to be.
The point of the exercise was to show us how impossible it is to “be good” through human striving. Trying to tame our tongue revealed how desperately we need the power of the gospel of Jesus working in us.
There was just one problem with that for me. I somehow got a message that went like this, “Don’t worry about your tongue. You’re going to screw up all the time. Just ask forgiveness.” I’m pretty sure that was not the point, nor is it the point regarding any of our sin. I am the one who needs “Tongue-Taming for Dummies.”
Let’s return to the short section in James 3:8-12.
Regarding the use of the tongue to curse, James says, “My brethren, he appeals, this ought not to be so” (3:9). John Stott says the word used here appears nowhere else in the New Testament – it means, “intrinsically not right,’ or ‘no way right.’ John Stott goes on to say,
“James makes us face something we can and must do. As he examined the tongue, its place among our bodily faculties, the dangers it threatens, the fearful task of controlling such a restive beast, we may well have found it all too much, far beyond the capacity of our present state of sanctification. But we can make a start here [my emphasis]. Here is something precise, limited, manageable. This is not beyond us; this is something we can tackle. It concerns the way we speak to somebody else about a brother or sister, the way we speak to a brother or sister.” John Stott, Commentary on James
Let us not forget – taming the tongue will not respond to human effort alone. But, as Stott says, “…a different fire from that which ascends from Gehenna descended from heaven to kindle new powers and give new speech to the human tongue.” (Acts 2:2-4). It is this power, the power of resurrection life, that is at work within us.
Want to take the challenge? Try looking for the image of God in your fellow human being today. Note what difference it makes in how you think of them and what you say about them. And yes, we will still blow it. But when we do, let us run, not walk, to the embrace of our forgiving Savior and then be sent out to bless again.
If you’re interested in hearing a great Bible study that has informed a lot of my thinking on this topic, check out Scotty Smith’s study for the women at CCC.
