Hidden Manna

Monday:

26 July 2010 Monday Bible study.

James 3:7-10, 7 This is scary: You can tame a tiger, 8 but you can't tame a tongue - it's never been done. The tongue runs wild, a wanton killer. 9 With our tongues we bless God our Father; with the same tongues we curse the very men and women he made in his image. 10 Curses and blessings out of the same mouth! My friends this can't go on. (from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.)

James 3:7-10, 7 For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind: 8 But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. 9 Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God. 10 Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be. (KJV)

It is obvious that we have two languages that we utilize in everyday life, one with which we speak with God the Father by and through Christ Jesus, and another that we talk with and about our fellow man. Yet when a person speaks, how often is it that they will fully weigh the meaning and power of the words which they utter?

How often does one really remember (or even care for that matter) that death or life are in the power of the tongue?

When the lower nature is in control, what kind of words does one speak with and converse with? Does one try to fit in with the crowd?

If you mixed weed killer with plant fertilizer, what do you think would happen to the plants you were about to feed and nurture? Do you really think that those plants would grow and thrive? So than why do you think that the words which you speak to and about others can or will have any different results than the example we just used?

We are supposed to be patterning our live and walk after the example that Jesus Christ set for us to follow (come follow me). He only did those things which He saw the Father do, and only spoke those words He heard the Father speak. How often is that the example which we use to get us through each day? How often is He the example or pattern we use for our daily conversation?

Matthew Henry has some insightful thoughts concerning these verses, let's take a look at them:

How absurd is it that those who use their tongues in prayer and praise should ever use them in cursing, slandering, and the like! If we bless God as our Father, it should teach us to speak well of, and kindly to, all who bear his image. That tongue which addresses with reverence the divine Being cannot, without the greatest inconsistency, turn upon fellow-creatures with reviling brawling language. It is said of the seraphim that praise God, they dare not bring a railing accusation. And for men to reproach those who have not only the image of God in their natural faculties, but are renewed after the image of God by the grace of the gospel: this is a most shameful contradiction to all their pretensions of honouring the great Original. These things ought not so to be; and, if such considerations were always at hand, surely they would not be. Piety is disgraced in all the shows of it, if there be not charity. That tongue confutes itself which one while pretends to adore the perfections of God, and to refer all things to him, and another while will condemn even good men if they do not just come up to the same words or expressions used by it. Further, to fix this thought, the apostle shows that contrary effects from the same causes are monstrous, and not be found in nature, and therefore cannot be consistent with grace: (from Matthew Henry's Commentary)

How much effort will you put forth today to speak and act as Jesus Christ did in setting an example for you to follow?