Offend Not in Word

In James 3 the brother of the Savior wrote this interesting description of what a “perfect” person should do: “If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body.”  Here he suggested that perfection is connected to one’s ability to control the tongue, to use uplifting language, to speak forth only those things that are befitting a follower of Christ.  He said, “And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.”  In other words, the way we use our speech, if we cannot control it, will defile us and lead us to hell.  That’s a pretty strong statement, and he even suggested that “the tongue no man can came tame,” which perhaps implies that without the Lord’s help we cannot fully control our tongues; as the natural man we need help from the Lord to use the language that He would have us use.  Ironically even horses, ships, and every kind of beast can be “tamed of mankind”—we have found ways to control them, but we can’t control our own tongues!  We both bless God and curse man with the same tongue as James noted: “Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be.”

Our goal ultimately should be to “speak with the tongues angels” as Nephi suggested we can do.  He said that once we are baptized with the Holy Ghost we can “speak with the tongue of angels, and shout praises unto the Holy One of Israel.”  After our baptism by fire we will have a “new tongue, yea, even the tongue of angels” (2 Nephi 31:13-14).  Nephi further explained that “angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore, they speak the words of Christ” (2 Nephi 32:3).  In other words, if we want to speak like angels then we need to say the things that the Savior would say.  That should be our way to determine of the things that come our of our tongue: is what we saying what the Savior would say?  One of the suggestions of this verse from Nephi is that in order to speak His words we need to “feast” upon them—one of the benefits of studying the words of the Savior in the scriptures is to help us speak more like He would.  James’ counsel is a reminder to all of us to strive to use language that the Lord would approve, and he summed up the kind of characteristics that we need to inform our speech: “But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy” (James 3:17).  That is a list that will take a lifetime to master, and surely we can all strive to have more gentleness and mercy and less partiality and hypocrisy in the words that we speak to all around us.