Bible Commentaries

James 4:11-12

Evil-speaking.

Part of the Christian life has to do with the tongue, and looking at it in its social aspect, the greatest part. The ways in which the sin forbidden in the text may be committed are legion, and time would fail us in any attempt to give them even the barest enumeration.

I. The first and most absolute form in which we can speak evil of a brother is by uttering against him a wilfully false accusation. One could have wished, for the sake of the honour of our race, that such a deliberate sin had been impossible; but unfortunately it is so common and inveterate that a special law against it was uttered on Sinai, and written on the stony tablet by the finger of God. And of all sinners in the world, the liar is the greatest and the most hopeless. While every sin is bad enough, and needs the special mercy of Heaven for its forgiveness and the special help of Heaven for its cure and abandonment, lying seems to go deeper into the heart and to taint it more thoroughly than any other. And there is this terrible peculiarity about it, that, while it is a sin in itself, it is also a shield for every other sin. Lying often takes the form of evil-speaking; and then you have a double evil, an evil compounded of malice and falsehood. Every stone of falsehood we put into the walls of the temple of truth will crumble; its colour will strike through whatever paint we may put upon it; and the great Architect will have it taken down and replaced by a stone of truth.

II. Another form of evil speaking is that of exaggerating faults that are real. While there has been an immense sacrifice of truth, there has been, on the part of the thoughtless romancers, an entire oblivion of the golden law, "Do unto others as ye would that they should do unto you."

III. Another way in which men speak evil one of another is by the unnecessary repetition of real faults. He that is without fault, let him first cast a stone at a faulty man. Of all species of conversation, there is none which is less profitable than that which consists of a morbid dissection of other men's characters.

IV. Another manner in which men speak evil of each other is by a sort of mock sorrow. Under the hypocritical guise of pity and abhorrence of sin, they indulge in the mischievous yet too common propensity to publish the failings of some erring brother.

V. Another manner in which men speak evil of each other is by misrepresenting language, motive, or circumstances. The extent to which this special form of evil-speaking goes on is such that it may well create great distrust in any story we hear. Things may sometimes be worse than the rumour, but in the majority of cases I am persuaded they are not half so bad. We are not to speak evil of each other because we are brethren, and because to speak evil of our brother is to speak evil of the law which commands us to love our brother. Let us jealously guard each other's reputations, each looking to it that his reputation shall be worth the guarding.

E. Mellor, In the Footsteps of Heroes, p. 138.

James 4:13-15

What is your life?

I. It is a very mysterious part of God's dealings, this making our life so uncertain. If we were not so thoroughly accustomed to the fact, we should, I think, all consider it a very remarkable thing that God should make so much depend on man's life, and yet should leave it so entirely unknown to him how long he will live. A man has a work to do, a great work, a work compared with which everything else he may do is mere trifling, and yet he does not know whether he shall have twenty years to do it in, or ten, or a few months or days.

II. It will throw all the light we require on this difficulty, if we remember one thing: that our state here is one of trial; we are not told to do this thing and that thing so much for their own sakes, as for the sake of seeing whether we will obey God or not. God's creatures must not be independent, but must be tried and found faithful. No man has any right to say, "Lord, I will follow Thee, but first let me" do my own pleasure. No man may say, I will have my youth to myself, and serve God in my old age. It is an insult to our heavenly Father even to think of such a thing, and therefore what profit would it be to us to know the number of our days, that we might be certain how long we had to live!

III. The truth of the text is the best truth to carry about with us in order to enable us to set things at their right value. If the uncertainty and shortness of life act to make those unhappy who are negligent of the will of God, in the same proportion will it give peace and comfort to the minds of those who do set themselves to do His holy will, for the troubles of life will appear trifling to him who thinks of himself as a traveller on his road home; a person on a journey will put up with many inconveniences, because he says they cannot last long, and home will appear even pleasanter after a rough journey.

Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons, vol. i., p. 257.

References: James 4:13-15.—Preacher's Monthly, vol. x., p. 44. James 4:13-16.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 99.

James 4:14

I. First, what is the intention of life? No man of any consideration can look on "this life" for a moment without connecting it with "the life that is to come." It is evident that the first great intention of this "life" is education, so that as in a man's "life" there is a portion upon this earth allotted to what is strictly preparatory to the rest, so is the whole immortal existence of a man arranged that there should be a period of instruction and cultivation, to be the education-time for his eternity. Allowing then that this "life" is education, education is made up of two parts: probation and cultivation. (1) Probation. I mean by that word that a man is to know himself, and to show to other men what he really is. That is probation. For the vindication of God's justice, a man develops in this world; therefore God has placed him for a certain season to show what manner of man he is going to be. The circumstances in which he is put are exactly the best to unfold his character. There is not a point of "life" in which there is not a probationary intention. (2) Education is also cultivation. Partly by instilling knowledge, but still more by drawing out powers, by establishing good habits and exercising right feelings, a child is educated for his after-life. Just such is all the machinery which surrounds us in our present state. Every variety of fortune, every little minute occurrence of life, the Bible, the Holy Spirit, the very Atonement itself, are all calculated to train; they are all means to an end.

II. But now I pass to the second thought which lies coiled up in the great question, "What is life?"—its duration. At the most a span; and that span is held by a thread. There is no certainty of "tomorrow," and many years are out of the question. And, with the "angel of death" thus in the air, can you sit down at your pleasures, and no "blood," on "the door"? If that "blood" is once there, upon your heart, which is a man's "door," the "door" of his existence, if "the blood of Christ" has ever been applied, everything is changed, age is happy, death is joy.

III. What is the real nature of "life"? All "life" is in the Father. Therefore he only "lives" who is united to the Father, and no man is united to the Father but by the power of "the blood of Jesus." Therefore "the blood of Jesus" is the essence of "life."

J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 4th series, p. 107.

There is no topic, I suppose, on which we are all so heartily agreed as that of the uncertainty of human life, and yet perhaps there is no topic, unanimous as our agreement about it may be, which produces so little effect upon character and conduct.

I. The sacred writer of the text, a man of a very practical turn of mind, is speaking of the habit in which some persons indulge of laying their plans for the future without any reference whatever to the Divine goodwill and pleasure. They arrange, he says, a long course of procedure, extending over many weeks or even months; they calculate the steps they will take, the transactions in which they will engage, the bargains they will strike, and all as if they were perfectly certain of a continuance of life. But is this wise or right? It is neither. It is foolish and wicked. These persons are feeling and acting as if they were masters of the situation and could command from God a prolongation of existence until their work was done, whereas such is the uncertainty of life that they positively cannot reckon upon what a single day will bring forth. St. James would be the last man to condemn a reasonable foresight. He well knew that we must look forward, must provide, must lay plans for the future. It is not this that he condemns. But the thing which he visits with the severity of his denunciation is the practical leaving of God out of His own world and the practical taking of the management of affairs into our own hands, which is implied in all confident reckoning upon the continuance of life.

II. Consider the importance of the life which we are now living in the flesh when regarded as determining our future destiny for incalculable ages. Its very uncertainty is part of the merciful Divine plan for making us thoughtful. The uncertainty is the very thing we want for rousing us to earnest seeking after salvation. When we feel it is probable that we shall continue to live, and yet possible that we may die at any time, we are in the very best state of mind for attending to religion.

G. Calthrop, Penny Pulpit, New Series, No. 899.

References: James 4:14.—E. Carr Glyn, Church of England Pulpit, vol. i., p. 49; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxx., No. 1773; Preacher's Monthly, vol. iii., p. 351. James 4:17.—J. H. Thorn, Laws of Life, 2nd series, p. 91. James 5:7.—J. M. Neale, Sermons for the Church Year, vol. i., p. 25; H. P. Liddon, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxiv., p. 385; Homiletic Magazine, vol. vii., p. 340.