Teachers And The Judgment
TEACHERS AND THE JUDGMENT
JAMES 3:1-5
Becoming a teacher is a serious business and we should not rush into it.
It appears from the opening verse that there was a tendency in some parts of the church to seek the office of teaching. Some people always find the limelight attractive, and there were not many opportunities for finding it in the early church. Christians seem to have been a fairly closely knit group. There was not much opportunity for showing off before others. But teaching did put a person in a position of prominence, and people of a certain temperament therefore sought the position. While a person should not avoid any responsibility that God lays on them, they should not seek a post about which this could not be said. So James begins by pointing out that those who teach will be judged very strictly. It is still a principle to be carefully observed that greater privilege means greater responsibility.
The danger involved in this is that people tend to make mistakes (3:2), and more particularly in the things they say. A slip of the tongue with serious consequences is always a possibility. And it is more of a possibility for the teacher than for other people. Words are a teacher’s tools of the trade. Teachers have to use them to communicate, So to rush into a position of teaching means to thrust oneself into a situation where a dangerous error is a constant possibility.
This leads James to the reflection that the tongue, though small in size, is great in achievement. He gives three illustrations of this: the small bit that guides a large horse, the small rudder that steers a huge ship, and the little fire that kindles a whole forest. We should not be misled by the tongue’s small size. Small though it is, it is powerful. It is the tongue that enables the teacher or the preacher to communicate. It is by the tongue that ordinary Christians can witness to others and so win them for Christ. So James’ warning on the responsibility of rightly using a weapon with great potential is of wider application than simply to teachers.