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Apostle James does not mince his words as he warns us of the power of the tongue and the words it produces both for good and for evil. God has given us an ability to communicate so that we can have relationships with each other and a relationship with Him as a Heavenly Father. We can use our tongue to praise God and request His Blessings, but that very same mouth and tongue can then yell at, criticise and abuse our fellow man. Throughout the history of the nations, we can see how the power of such a small vessel can either build up or destroy.

The message is clear. This ought not to be so in the Christian church. Earlier, James exhorted the church (1:19) to be ‘swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath’. If we pause before responding to any situation, particularly an offence, the Holy Spirit has time to act within us and allow us to hear the other person’s concern, but be slow to formulate a response so that the response does not escalate the matter to create wrath/anger. When we do respond with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we can do as Solomon wrote in his wisdom (Prov 15:1) “A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.” The soft answer in James’s teaching would be considered sweet water or good fruit and that should be our goal.

There is a blessing to both the hearer and the user of soft words but, as highlighted in this text, there are also negative consequences as a result of bitter words. The creation teaches us that if we plant something and water it with bitter or salty water it will die. If fruit is bad there is no nourishment from it and ultimately it will rot. Similarly, the result of our words can affect our own spiritual growth, or our relationships with others and even our relationship with God. We need to ask ourselves, “Is my speech building up or tearing down?”

The opposite of ‘soft speech’ is harsh (‘blas’) speech (-phemia). Blasphemy! Originally from the Greek language and now meaning to defame Holy things. Evil speaking, backbiting, defaming, slandering, complaining are all used in the New Testament to demonstrate how the tongue can destroy. Yes, even complaining. The people murmured against Moses and Aaron. Our Lord taught a parable of those who murmured against the good man of the house (Matt 20:11). The disciples murmured against Jesus (John 6:61) and we can read many times during our Lord’s life His disappointed response to those who murmured.

This topic is particularly relevant and visible within modern forms of communication. On social media, someone will ask a question or make a statement and within a very short period of time it is easy to find a raging bushfire of bitter and harsh speech. Unfortunately, this also leads on to judgement. People are demonstrating Apostle James’s teaching that these negative responses can even destroy people’s lives. Many people respond negatively because there is a perceived anonymity to their response, but we should not be deceived, God knows even our very thoughts.

Using negative words impacts on the user as much as the receiver. When a water source begins to be contaminated it can go from sweet to bitter very quickly. The time to fix the problem is early and maintain sweet water within all our communication.