Tuesday, March 24, 2009

James 3

I wanted to take a minute and consider James chapter 3 and blogging. What about James 3? Well, this part:

5 So also the tongue is a small part of the body, and yet it boasts of great things.
See how great a forest is set aflame by such a small fire! 6 And the tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity; the tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of our life , and is set on fire by hell . 7 For every species of beasts and birds, of reptiles and creatures of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by the human race . 8 But no one can tame the tongue; it is a restless evil and full of deadly poison. 9 With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God;

James 3:5-9 (NASB)



We need to remember that this applies to what we write as well. It's remarkable to me that I sometimes forget it. What we say in print needs to be considered alongside what we say with our mouths. Why? Because James is writing in a primarily oral culture. It's not just about that thing in your mouth that you taste with, but about the words you use. Keep that in mind when you comment on blogs, post on blogs, write letters to the editor, speak, email, and so forth. Does it pass James 3? Does it pass Philippians 4:8 ?

And, yes, I desperately need to do a better job of this. It's why you'll see my name associated with the comment 'This comment has been deleted by the author' in not a few places...

1 comment:

  1. Great article. I never though about James 3 being about writing. Great insight. Words, rather spoken or written, can hurt.

    ReplyDelete

To deal with SPAM comments, all comments are moderated. I'm typically willing to post contrary views...but I also only check the list once a day, so if you posted within the last 24 hours, I may not be to it yet.

Sermon Add-on for March 10

 Continuing the use of Artificial Intelligence to try and generate discussion questions from the sermon, here's what it gave me this wee...