VIII
The Tongues of Teachers
James carries on the discussion of “slow to speak” (1:19). He has just been writing about idle faith in 2:14-26, and now he proceeds (Plummer) to expound the peril of the idle word, “wrong speech after wrong action” (Hort). Indeed, in 1:26 he has already mentioned the failure to bridle the tongue as a sure sign of vain religion. Now he expands the matter in a remarkable paragraph.
The transition is thus not so abrupt as at first seems to be the case, and apparently from the first he planned this discussion of the tongue. Probably it comes here (Plummer) because controversies about faith and works were already rife. Here James speaks “against those who substitute words for works” (Plummer), a rather large class. “In noble uprightness, he values only the strict practice of concrete duties, and hates talk” (Reuss), if it is only talk. James has the gift of condensation. He can write on talk without taking twenty volumes, like Carlyle, to prove that if speech is silvern, silence is golden (Plummer). The “overvaluation of theory as compared with practice” (Mayor) condemned in chapter II is still present with James as he discusses the tongue.
An Oversupply of Teachers (3:1a)
We are not here to think simply of official teachers like Paul’s apostles, prophets, teachers (1 Cor. 12:28 f.; Eph. 4:11). In the Didache (xiii. 2, xv. 1, 2) teachers are placed on a par with prophets and higher than bishops and deacons. There is no doubt that teaching received tremendous emphasis in the work of the early Christians. Jesus is the great Teacher of the ages and is usually presented as teaching. In the Jewish “houses of learning” (synagogues) teaching was as prominent an element as worship. The official teachers passed away, and the modern Sunday school movement is an effort to restore the teaching function in the churches.
The true preacher should be a teacher also, but many preachers are more evangelistic and hortatory than didactic. The best preachers combine all these elements and build up the saints in the faith to which they have been won. The mission work of modern Christianity also has had to lay new emphasis on the educational side of Christian effort. There is no reason why the morning service in public worship should not be a teaching service and the evening service more evangelistic. Teachers are necessary. People “having itching ears, will heap to themselves teachers after their own lusts” (2 Tim. 4:3).[75] Epictetus (bk. III, chap, xxiii, § 29) says: Rufus “used to speak in such a way that each of us as we sat thought that someone had accused us to him.”
But James here is thinking of the unofficial teachers in the churches. In the Jewish synagogues there was wide latitude allowed for strangers and others to speak. Jesus took advantage of this opportunity and taught freely in the synagogues (Matt. 12:9 ff.; Mark 1:39; Luke 6:6 ff.). There would be interruption and violent opposition at times (cf. John 6:59-66). Paul used the courtesy to strangers to speak in the Jewish synagogues and met with open opposition at times (cf. Acts 13:15, 45; 18:6).
In Corinth we have a striking instance of the evil of promiscuous teaching, unrestrained and unregulated (1 Cor. 14). It became necessary for Paul to rebuke the church for unseemly disorder. There were many who were only too ready to be carried away by any newfangled doctrine. There is safety in free discussion, which acts as a safety valve and also leaves a deposit of truth. But the acrimonious spirit had a fine opportunity to display itself. Men of arrogant convictions and little knowledge felt that they “had no need to learn anything from their brethren, but were fully equipped as teachers” (Johnstone), “desiring to be teachers of the law, though they understand neither what they say, nor whereof they confidently affirm” (1 Tim. 1:7).
Some men with a certain fluency of speech really had no message and only spoke out of vanity and really “thought more of the admiration which they might excite by a display of their powers than of the light and strength which through Gods grace they might give their brethren” (Dale). Evidently James is here concerned with these promiscuous, officious, irresponsible, self-appointed teachers, men with a cocksure explanation of all difficulties, not afraid to rush in where angels fear to tread.
The world was full of roving teachers with every sort of patent ism to dispense to the public. Both Jews and Athenians were eager for something newer than the last stale theory (the very latest fad). The synagogues of the Jews and the churches of the Christians offered a fine platform for these cranks to air their notions. Besides, some of the best of men, earnest Christians, have a “lust for talk” (W. Robertson Nicoll) that leads them into all sorts of excesses.