Episode 28: What Do Your Words Reveal?

In this episode, we continue our study through James with a look at chapter 3 and the power of the tongue. James shows us that our words are never “just words.” They have the ability to direct, destroy, reveal, and shape. We explore the deeper connection between speech and spiritual formation, the difference between earthly and heavenly wisdom, and why the atmosphere around our lives says more about us than we may realize.

Transcript

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Welcome to Rooted with Emily Talento. Re-explore who Jesus is through context, culture, and covenant. Today we are in chapter three of our study on the book of James. And I've, I mean, anytime I'm reading James, I'm a very happy person because it's such a breath of fresh air. It doesn't matter that it was written 2,000 years ago. It's so relevant to humanity as a whole. And I think it gives us a very unique perspective into the early church that is a perspective that we are missing in 2026. Especially, most of us don't have a Jewish background. And so I think there's very unique insights that if we're reading James through the appropriate lens, we can gain so much into the thinking that Jesus and the early disciples would have had. So quick recap. Week one, or in chapter one, we talked about the trials that we face as a part of life and what those trials produce. And we also talked about why it's important that we're doers of the word, not hearers only. That theme of living it out continued in chapter two when we talked about how faith is great, but faith without works is dead. And so that's kind of what we talked about in the last episode. I mean, we elaborated further, but that was the heart of it. And then in today's episode, we are going to continue with this idea of living it out, but specifically in regard to the tongue, and specifically looking at how the tongue is kind of a thermometer for everything else going on. It's an outpouring. We are not living steadfastly if we do not have control over our words. And so that's what we're going to be looking at today. So the question that we're going to be answering, I mean, you can guess, it's what do our words reveal? And so before we jump into actually the text, I want to read the text as a whole, and then we can zoom into different observations. Oh, before we do that, what we've been doing, if this is your first time watching one of these, welcome. We are going through the Bible, studying scripture together by looking at the text and its context, looking at observations from the text, just like what does the text plainly say? And then after we make our observations, we are looking at what the text tells us about our God. And then, based on what it says about our God, what can we take away? What is our response? What is our responsibility? Okay. And so that is a way that, I mean, it's not the only way to study scripture, but it is a way that I recommend studying scripture, especially if it's something that is new to you. Another thing that we are doing in these episodes in our study is we look at rooted moments. So we'll have quite a few of those today as well, that just kind of bring us back to the original context and culture of the day that the Bible is written, in getting insights that we are likely missing in 2026. So, all that to say, let's jump into the text. I'm gonna read chapter three as a whole, and then we'll zoom in to different sections. So, starting with verse one. For we all stumble in many ways, and if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. Look at the ships also, though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder, wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire, and the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil full of deadly poison, with it we bless our God and Father, and we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water. Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder in every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. Okay, so much here. We're going to take it section by section. I want to start by going into the first observation. So there'll be three observations that we're going to look at throughout. And where we're starting is small things can direct our entire lives. Now, this is specifically referring to verses one through five. Starting in verse one, James gives a warning to teachers. There's a responsibility that teachers carry because their words are shaping other people. And so they will be held accountable for how they're shaping the direction they're guiding people in. And then from there he gives multiple illustrations. He gives illustration of the bite in the horse's mouth. He gives the example of the rudder, how you have these small things that end up being able to guide and shape something much larger than itself. And so the steering of these small things has a massive outcome. Think about like how big the ships are. And I think obviously in our world today, we use cars and planes for most of our transportation, but like this is their equivalent, horses and boats. And so I think it would have landed harder in this context. Our tongue might seem small and insignificant, but it ends up directly affecting every single thing in our entire lives, every single relationship that we have. And so, I mean, James taking a whole chapter to really zero in is very appropriate. So for our first rooted moment, which I did describe what a rooted moment is, we were looking at the original context and culture. Now, I've said this before, I haven't said it in this episode, but the book of James was written to a Jewish audience. I mean, they were believers in Jesus, but they had a Jewish background. They're Jews in the dispersion, right? And so he is building on an understanding that they already had. It's actually very interesting. It's similar to Jesus' teachings, how there is information that is assumed because of the context that is a part of the history. Like in Paul's writings, he has to kind of get everyone up to speed because the Gentiles don't have this same history, this shared knowledge. But when you're writing to Jews, these concepts are not new. In Jewish wisdom literature, so like think the book of Proverbs, you can constantly see connections between speech and life and death. So for example, Proverbs 18, 21, it says, death and life are in the power of the tongue. Words have meaning. You can either build people up or tear people down. I mean, that's true. But the biblical Hebraic understanding, and when I say Hebraic, I just mean the context in which scripture was written, like the perspective that would have been had by the original recipients of the Bible. And so it wasn't just, yeah, your words have power, but rather our words had the power to form reality, which is crazy when you think about this idea that God created the universe through speech. You think about this idea in Jewish culture, which we could see throughout the Old Testament, how central blessings were. You would speak blessings over others, and how curses were also present. And so that's the power of words. Covenants are another example. They weren't written first, they were communicated from God to man through words. Think about all the times in the Old Testament where people are being told their identity by God. He's giving them mission, he's telling them what he's calling them to, he's changing their name, whatever it is. It's all done through words. And it's more than just, yeah, your words have the power to X, Y, and Z. This is reality giving, which I do think also kind of plays into this element of why teachers are going to be judged more harshly. Because it's it's shaping, it's shaping a person's reality. I think it also plays in well with what we're seeing in James 3:1 about the warning to teachers, because teachers have the power to shape others' reality through their words. And so that's observation one and rooted moment one. Rooted, um okay, so that's observation one and rooted moment one. Let's jump to observation two, which is the tongue reveals what's happening at the source. So that's verses six through twelve. I'm gonna read it really quick because I do think that there's some stuff here that we need to highlight. And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird of reptile and sea creature can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives or grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water. Okay. Remember observation two, the tongue reveals what's happening at the source. So first we have this fiery imagery, and then you have this untamable tongue. He goes through all of the animals that can be tamed and have been tamed, but nobody can officially and fully conquer the tongue. And then the line that really gets me in this it's verse 9. With it, we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. Ooh. That's convicting. And then we end on more nature. So he brings up the spring, how the same hole cannot produce salt and fresh water, and he brings up the fruit tree. That a fur tree is only going to produce one type of fruit. This kind of feels like a throwback to me to chapter one when we were talking about being double-minded, and how when that's translated from the Greek, it's directly meaning two souled, so two like two souls. And so we can't we can't do both of these things. We can't have salt and freshwater coming from the same hole. We can't have a fruit tree producing multiple types of fruit. That's crazy. And in the same way, if our heart is set on God and we are living lives that are aligned with Him, then our tongues cannot be out of control. It just doesn't work. So for our second rooted moment, we're going to look specifically at the imagery because kind of like I said with the last one, with this idea that obviously like we have transportation in cars and planes, but their transportation, their cars and planes of the day were their horses and boats. And so a spring that doesn't mean as much to us, but that was I mean, when you looked at any early civilization, what was the number one criteria for where they started? Water. And so it is a source for life, it is central to these communities. And when you, I mean, throughout the Bible, you could see like the women going to retrieve water and like water as a whole was just such a massive part of life. And so for him to use this example, it would have hit very close to home, and they would have been able to recognize it. That piece specifically of no, this is this is the source of life that everything else comes from. James is saying, if you have a corrupted spring, it is affecting everybody downstream. And it's the same thing in our lives. It is obviously going to affect if we are having an issue, it will corrupt everybody else around us. James isn't saying, oh yeah, you occasionally say bad things. He's asking, back to verse 9, the one I really like. I don't know if I like it, I feel convicted by it. How can you bless our God? How can you praise our God and then in the next breath curse someone made in the image of God? How can those two things be coming from the same spiritual source? We know from the Bible, specifically from Jesus' teachings, our actions matter, obviously, but our heart is what's really important, right? And so if there's an issue on the outside where we have no control over our tongue, that is reflecting a deeper issue in our heart. We might be able to think we're doing all the right things, but if it's decaying in here, it's only a matter of time before it comes out, oftentimes through our tongue. Jesus says, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. That exact point. It's the overflow. It gives us a thermometer of what is happening inside. If we're lacking self-control in our speech, we're probably lacking self-control in other areas. And it's a good opportunity for us to do an internal check. Jumping to observation three, I wish we could go through this in smaller sections, but I also recognize the fact that like verse by verse would take a very long time. But there's just so much here that we're missing if we're doing like a drive-by, which we're doing a drive-by. And so James 3, verses 13 through 18 is our section for observation three, which is wisdom is revealed by atmosphere and fruit. So we take a pivot. We're talking about the tongue directly, and then all of a sudden we talk about the distinction about earthly wisdom and heavenly wisdom, or wisdom from above. Picking up in verse 13. Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct, let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder in every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere, and a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. James makes the distinction between earthly and heavenly wisdom, and he defines it. Earthly wisdom is unspiritual, demonic, where there is jealousy and selfish ambition, which is a part of earthly wisdom. There exists disorder and every vile practice. Okay. But then he defines heavenly wisdom, which is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy, good fruit, impartial, and sincere. Like who doesn't want that? And we also know from James 1, again, a throwback to James 1, if you lack wisdom, ask God for it, because He will generously, He wants to bless us with wisdom. However, also James 1, don't doubt. Because if you doubt, then you're double-minded and you won't be blessed for that. This is something that God wants to give us. So we should be continually asking him to continue to bless us in that way. And for our last rooted moment of the episode, again, in Jewish thought, wisdom is not primarily intellectual mastery. I think sometimes we conflate wisdom with knowledge, and they're two vastly different things. Wisdom often speaks to living in alignment with God, living the life that we were designed to have in the way that God designed us to have it, right? And so the concept of wisdom is very much tied to how we speak. We could see from this chapter, how we act, how we relate to others, how we are able to govern our emotion, how we treat people, how we and this text, remember it says about peace and how we create peace. That is a much larger reflection of our wisdom than I don't know how much we know about any given topic. This flows really nicely from the last chapter we read, which again is faith without works is dead. Wisdom is not something that, oh, like I didn't know they were wise. No, wisdom follows a person. Wisdom is the atmosphere that's around them. I mean, you could be wise in some areas. Obviously, we're all working progresses. We're never always going to be living in alignment with God. However, more times than not, is the atmosphere that follows a person is it pointing to Alignment with God, or is it pointing to something else? And that is something that when we are looking at others, not as a judgment, but more as like, is this a person that has the wisdom to speak into my life? Is this a person that I can learn from? Okay, what is following them? What is their life made up of? Those are the questions that we should be asking ourselves. So we did our observations, we did our rooted moments, we are going to jump into briefly what this chapter tells us about our God. What can we learn about God's character from this chapter? And so here are a few things. God cares deeply about our words. God desires integrity between our worship and our lives. They're not isolated. God cares about the heart, not just the behavior. However, the behavior is oftentimes an outpouring of the heart. So both do matter, but at the end of the day, if our heart is in the right place, that is the chicken or the egg come first. In this case, the heart condition comes first. And then our actions are an outpouring of that. Next one is God's wisdom is peaceful, gentle, and merciful. And last but not least, God defines wisdom by fruit, not appearance. Person can have a lot of things to say, but they're not actually wise because it comes back to how we live. How should we respond? Based on that, what we just learned about our God, what in our lives need to look different? Ask God to transform our hearts, not just our speech. Again, we're very obsessed with outcomes. And so this is an area that we often put the cart before the horse. And so to take a step back and look at the source. Next one, take our words more seriously. I think in our culture, in our society, we're very flippant about what we say. I don't know if it's just because we want to make people feel good. I don't I don't 100% know what it is, but I do think that societally we need to do better about meaning what we say and saying what we mean and sticking to it. And if that means we maybe aren't speaking as much, then maybe that's what needs to happen. Next one is use speech to bring life, not destruction. Sounds obvious, but it's much harder to do than it seems. And I I think because we talked about this in a previous episode, it isn't even what we say sometimes, it's how we say it. And so we could be not saying anything wrong, but if our tone is is not life-giving, then our words are also not life-giving. You know, does that make sense? And so we have that power, and we will be held responsible for the reality that we create through our words. The next one is pursue wisdom marked by peace and humility. It's the upside-down kingdom in the world. You're like fighting to be the top and the best and all the things, and it's like, no, in God's kingdom, we are striving for peace and humility. And that is a sign of wisdom. As we close, I wrote down some questions that we can ask ourselves to help this go from being, okay, like head knowledge, learning this, this is great, to being applied and integrated into our lives. So the first one, what do my words reveal about what's happening inside of me? Number two, what kind of atmosphere follows me? Number three, do I sound more shaped by earthly wisdom or heavenly wisdom? Number four, do my speech and worship align? And number five, are my words producing life or destruction? So those are just ways that we could practically look inward and reflect on what the Lord might be calling us to do, ways he might be chipping at our hearts to become more like him. It's a lifetime journey. We're never gonna have a hundred percent control over our tongue. However, I do believe very strongly in the concept of I just prayed that tomorrow is better than today. And so I hope you enjoyed it. If you liked this episode, if you could comment, subscribe, like, follow, whatever it is they have on the platform, then you were either listening or watching this on. You could also follow me on Instagram at Emily Talento and at rooted with Emily Talento. I would really appreciate it. And I'll see you next time.