James 3: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

James warns that not many should become teachers, since teachers face stricter judgment, and he points out that everyone stumbles, especially in speech. He compares the tongue to a horse's bit, a ship's rudder, and a spark that burns a forest: small, but able to steer or destroy the whole person. He notes that the same mouth blesses God and curses people made in God's likeness, and says this should not be. He then contrasts two kinds of wisdom, one earthly and marked by jealousy and selfish ambition, the other from above and marked by purity, peace, mercy, and sincerity.

Claim by Claim

1. 3:1
   • Not many should become teachers.
   • James addresses his hearers as his brothers.
   • Those who teach will receive a greater judgment.
   • James includes himself among those who will receive the greater judgment.
   • His hearers know that teachers receive greater judgment.
2. 3:2
   • All of us stumble in many ways.
   • If anyone does not stumble in speech, that person is a perfect man.
   • Such a person is able to bridle his whole body as well.
3. 3:3
   • We put bits into the mouths of horses so that the horses will obey us.
   • By the bits we turn the horses' whole body about.
4. 3:4
   • Ships are very large.
   • Ships are driven by fierce winds.
   • Ships are steered by a very small rudder.
   • The ship goes wherever the impulse of the one steering wills.
5. 3:5
   • The tongue is a small member of the body.
   • The tongue boasts of great things.
   • A small fire sets ablaze a great forest.
6. 3:6
   • The tongue is a fire.
   • The tongue is a world of iniquity.
   • The tongue is set among the members of our body.
   • The tongue defiles the whole body.
   • The tongue sets on fire the whole course of existence.
   • The tongue is itself set on fire by hell.
7. 3:7
   • Every kind of beast, bird, reptile, and sea creature is being tamed.
   • Every such kind has been tamed by humankind.
8. 3:8
   • No human being can tame the tongue.
   • The tongue is an unruly evil.
   • The tongue is full of deadly poison.
9. 3:9
   • With the tongue we bless God, the Father.
   • With the same tongue we curse people.
   • People have been made in the likeness of God.
10. 3:10
    • Blessing and cursing come out of the same mouth.
    • James addresses his hearers as his brothers.
    • These things ought not to be so.
11. 3:11
    • A spring does not pour out sweet water and bitter water from the same opening.
12. 3:12
    • A fig tree cannot produce olives.
    • A vine cannot produce figs.
    • No spring can yield both salt water and fresh water.
    • James addresses his hearers as his brothers.
13. 3:13
    • James asks who among them is wise and understanding.
    • The wise person should show his works by good conduct.
    • The wise person should show his works in the meekness that belongs to wisdom.
14. 3:14
    • Some may have bitter envy in their hearts.
    • Some may have selfish rivalry in their hearts.
    • Those with bitter envy and rivalry are not to boast.
    • Those with bitter envy and rivalry are not to lie against the truth.
15. 3:15
    • That wisdom does not come down from above.
    • That wisdom is earthly.
    • That wisdom is unspiritual.
    • That wisdom is demonic.
16. 3:16
    • Where envy and selfish rivalry are, there is disorder.
    • Where envy and selfish rivalry are, there is every evil practice.
17. 3:17
    • The wisdom from above is first pure.
    • The wisdom from above is then peaceable.
    • The wisdom from above is gentle.
    • The wisdom from above is open to persuasion.
    • The wisdom from above is full of mercy.
    • The wisdom from above is full of good fruits.
    • The wisdom from above is without partiality.
    • The wisdom from above is without hypocrisy.
18. 3:18
    • The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace.
    • It is sown by, or for, those who make peace, and the text does not settle which.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

3:1

The King James "masters" means teachers, not owners or rulers; the word had that sense in 1611, as in "schoolmaster." James is warning against a rush to take up the teaching role in the assembly, and he includes himself: "we shall receive." The "greater condemnation" is a stricter standard of judgment, since a teacher is answerable for what he leads others to believe.

3:2

"Offend" in 1611 English means to trip or stumble, not to give offense or hurt someone's feelings; the Greek word is the ordinary one for stumbling. "A perfect man" translates a word meaning complete, finished, fully grown, so it describes maturity rather than flawlessness. "Bridle" starts the horse image that the next verse picks up.

3:3

A bit is a small metal bar that lies in a horse's mouth. Straps run from it back to the rider's hands. A gentle pull turns the horse's whole body.

3:4

"Helm" is the rudder, and the "governor" is the steersman or pilot, the man handling it. "Listeth" is an old verb meaning wishes or chooses; it survives today only in the phrase "as he lists." Ancient cargo ships were steered by large oar-like rudders worked from the stern, tiny in comparison to the hull they turned.

3:5

"How great a matter a little fire kindleth" is easy to misread. "Matter" here is not a topic or affair but timber: the Greek word means wood or a forest. The picture is a spark setting a whole woodland alight.

3:6

"The course of nature" renders a Greek phrase that literally reads "the wheel of birth" or "the wheel of existence." It was a stock expression for the whole round of a person's life from start to finish, and ancient readers would also have heard the sound of a cartwheel that catches fire at the axle as it turns. "Hell" here is Gehenna, named for a ravine outside Jerusalem with a grim history, used by this period as a name for the place of final punishment.

3:7

"Serpents" covers creeping and crawling creatures generally, what we would call reptiles. The four categories, land animals, birds, creeping things and sea creatures, are the same four used in the creation account in Genesis, so the sentence is claiming humanity has tamed every class of living thing there is.

3:9

"Similitude" simply means likeness, and the phrase echoes Genesis, where humans are made in God's image and likeness. To "curse" a person here is not foul language but calling down real harm on them, the formal opposite of blessing.

3:11

"Sweet" water means fresh, drinkable water; "bitter" means brackish or salt. This was a live problem in the region: springs around the Dead Sea and the Jordan valley could run salt or sulphurous, and a spring was known by which kind it gave. The point rests on the fact that one opening yields one kind.

3:12

"Olive berries" is just the King James term for olives, the fruit of the olive tree. Figs, olives and grapes were the three staple fruit crops of the region, so the examples are drawn from what every hearer grew or bought.

3:13

"Conversation" in 1611 English did not mean talk. It meant a person's whole manner of life, how they conducted themselves day to day, and that is its regular sense throughout the King James New Testament. "Endued with knowledge" means equipped with understanding. "Meekness" translates a word for a humble, unaggressive temper, not timidity or weakness.

3:14

"Envying" here is jealousy, a fierce partisan zeal. "Strife" translates a Greek word that originally meant working for pay and came to mean self-seeking, the scheming of someone building a following for himself. "Glory not" means do not boast. "Lie not against the truth" means do not let the boast contradict the facts about yourself.

3:15

"Sensual" is one of the most misleading words in this chapter for a modern reader. The Greek word means belonging to the natural human life, the life of appetite and instinct as opposed to the life given by God's Spirit. It carries no sexual meaning. "Devilish" translates a word meaning demonic, of the same kind as the demons.

3:16

"Confusion" translates a word meaning disorder, unrest, the instability of a group or a town in tumult. It is the same root as the "unruly" used of the tongue in verse 8, not mental muddle.

3:17

"Easy to be intreated" means ready to be persuaded, willing to yield when someone makes a case; the modern sense of "entreat" as begging has pulled the phrase out of shape. "Without partiality" renders a Greek word that can mean either impartial, showing no favoritism, or undivided, without wavering; both readings are defensible and translators split over it. "Hypocrisy" comes from the Greek word for an actor playing a part on stage.

3:18

The image is farming: seed sown, then a crop. The Greek can be read two ways, that peacemakers sow the seed, or that the crop is sown for their benefit, and the grammar does not settle it. "Fruit of righteousness" can likewise mean the harvest that right living produces or the harvest that consists of right living.