Self-Control

Near the end of James 1; the apostle taught an important principle for proper Christian living. First in v.21 he said we should put aside filthiness and wickedness, and receive the word of God, which is able to save our souls; save us in the sense of sanctifying us. Saving us from the consequences of our sinful choices.

That sanctifying process is a result of receiving the word in humility, hearing the teaching of God’s word. James goes on to say that if we are merely hearers of the word and not doers of the word, we deceive ourselves into thinking we are religious. In v.26 James offers a gold standard of sorts for measuring who is truly putting the word into practice. If we cannot learn to bridle our tongue, to control it with authority, then our religion is worthless. Here again is this idea of worth or value. Any life of religion that doesn’t arrive at sanctification – a life that is steadily becoming more Christ-like and holy – is of no value or worth.

Note: Outward religious practice that doesn’t lead to an inward conforming to Christ in our lives won’t profit God, our neighbors nor ourselves. Moving to Chapter 3 today, we come back to this theme. At the end of Chapter 2, James finished with a reminder that our life goal must be to declare our faith publicly by doing the works that faith requires. Works are anything that display our faith, whether an action or a word or even a thought, and for James, the words we use are a particularly good indicator of our maturity in the faith. So, he spends Chapter 3 focused on speech and its relationship to spiritual maturity.

First, we need to remember that James is Jewish and he’s writing to a Jewish audience, and in Jewish culture, a teacher was an important authority figure. They called teachers rabbi, and it was a term of authority and power. So, James is speaking about leaders in the church who express their leadership through a teaching role of one kind or another, and by teaching, we mean establishing the normative interpretation of Scripture for a body of believers. Today, we might call these people pastors, teachers, leaders, and so forth. This would also include women who teach under the authority of pastors or elders and interpret Scripture. These are the roles that should particularly heed this warning. The warning says don’t press yourself into one of these roles. Don’t even make holding a leadership role in teaching a goal unless you are specifically gifted and called to that role. Teaching without the spiritual gift means working outside your gift, and it is not a work of the Spirit, and we are placing ourselves in jeopardy come judgment day because when we inevitably mishandle God’s word in the course of teaching, we have deceived ourselves and others concerning God’s word.

Finally, all Christians are given the ability by the Spirit to read and understand Scripture to a certain extent. This study is not proposing that only certain people can read and interpret Scripture for us. This was the heresy perpetuated by Rome prior to the Reformation. We are a kingdom of priests, and all believers have equal access to the Spirit and to the opportunity to know and understand God’s word, but there is a difference in God’s economy between knowing something for ourselves and endeavoring to teach Scripture to others. The Spirit may reveal some aspect of Scripture to us – just what He feels we need – while not giving us a complete enough picture to carry that message to others. As mentioned already, James quickly broadens his point beyond teachers. James is really talking about self-control, because the most important work we can do in faith is the work of conforming our behavior to the commandments of Scripture, and James returns to his Chapter 1 theme telling us that the best test of our spiritual maturity is found in how well we control ourselves, particularly our tongue. If we can reach a point in our Christian walk where we are self-controlled in our speech, we will have become spiritually mature. That’s what James means by “perfect” – the word is teleios which literally means having reached an end or being complete.

This is a Biblical principle. Our degree of spiritual maturity shows itself most readily in our speech patterns. If our speech is godly and pleasing to the Lord in all respects, we may fairly judge ourselves to be maturing in our walk of faith, but this is a tough standard. It addresses lying, gossiping, boasting, slandering, cursing, and a whole host of other tendencies. Until we’ve put all those aside entirely, we still have work to do. That’s why James gives a warning to those who might wish to teach, because if we’re not a mature believer with a Spiritual gift to teach, we’re likely to see our teaching become laced with one or another of these sins.

 Our very reason for being saved is unmet in God’s view so long as our tongue – and the rest of our body – remains outside the Spirit’s control. We will one day bring forth fresh water, and then the next day we bring forth salt water, and in that way, we fail to bring our Lord glory.