James 1:25-26
If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight reign on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
The word “religion” is a very dangerous word. Not only does the word represent one of the topics that should be avoided at family gatherings (along with politics and whether you are a Cubs or Sox fan), but also the cause of some of the most violent conflicts in the world today.
It’s also a word that I try not to use. When someone asks, “What religion are you?” I usually respond with something like, “I’m a Christian, but I don’t think of it so much as a ‘religion’ – but more of a relationship.”
The word James uses here, threskos, is only used once in the entire New Testament, and could be translated either “religious” or “devout.” The verb form, threskeia, is only used 3 times and carries the meaning of “ritual worship, reverence for the gods, or religion.”
James seems to be referring to the kind of “religion” that is contained in outward ritual but which fails to change the heart from which all genuine change flows. He’s talking about the kind of religion that allows a person to deceive themselves.
Interestingly, the first issue that James points to as an indicator of superficial religion has to do with the tongue; with how we speak.
If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless.
When I was in about second grade I heard a boy use a word that I had never heard before. I did not know what the word meant but it seemed to have quite an impact on the playground. I couldn’t wait to try out the word myself. So when I got home from school that day I went up to my room on the second floor of our house, which was packed tightly with other houses on our small street, opened my window, and shouted this word as loud as I could. As you’ve probably guessed it was a four-letter word rhyming with the word “spit.”
I quickly discerned, due to my mother’s swift and forceful reaction, that although the word did have impact, it was not good impact! Simply put, my parents taught me that our family did not use words like that and that Christians should not use words like that.
James is saying the same thing in a different way.
When he says we are to keep a “tight rein” on our tongue, he is using imagery from the equestrian world. Just as a rider is controls a horse by the use of reins and a bit, so we are to control our own tongues.
Perhaps you have noticed, as I have, the increasing vulgarity of language allowed on prime time TV and over the radio. It is simply no longer surprising to hear words used routinely that just 15 years ago would have been regarded as appalling, offensive or both.
I think James would be concerned about language like that filtering into our every-day vocabulary as followers of Christ.
In fact, later in his letter James writes:
The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. (James 3:6)
We might think, “Well, they are only words, and words don’t really hurt anything!”
Consider what Jesus said in Luke 6:45
“The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.” Luke 6:45
What does your tongue say about your heart?
Pastor Brian Coffey
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