Out of the Same Mouth: Blessing and Cursing James 3:9–10 (Santamaria)

Out of the Same Mouth: Blessing and Cursing

James 3:9–10 (KJV)

“Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be.”

There is something frightening about the human tongue.

With it we whisper a prayer over a sick child. With it we comfort a grieving widow. With it we sing hymns, confess Christ, read the Scriptures, bless our children, encourage the discouraged, and tell a broken soul that there is still hope.

And with that very same tongue we can wound a person so deeply that the scar remains for decades.

James does not permit us to hide from this contradiction.

“Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men.”

The same mouth.

The same lips.

The same voice.

Perhaps only minutes apart.

A person may stand in the congregation and sing, “How Great Thou Art,” and before the day is finished use that same mouth to humiliate his wife, belittle his child, destroy a brother’s reputation, repeat gossip, mock an enemy, or speak contemptuously about someone for whom Christ died.

James looks at that contradiction and says:

“My brethren, these things ought not so to be.”

There is almost heartbreak in those words.

He does not merely say that such speech is impolite.

He does not merely call it poor manners.

He exposes it as a spiritual contradiction.

We bless God while cursing someone who bears God’s likeness.

That is what makes the sin so serious.

James says that human beings are:

“made after the similitude of God.”

The word “similitude” points us back toward creation itself.

“God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Genesis 1:26).

Every person we encounter carries the dignity of having been made by God.

The person who irritates you.

The person who disagrees with you.

The person who embarrassed you.

The person who betrayed you.

The person whose politics you despise.

The person whose theology you believe is wrong.

The person who has little education.

The person who has great wealth.

The person living on the street.

The prisoner.

The stranger.

The elderly person whose mind is failing.

The child who cannot defend himself.

The opponent who has spoken against you.

You may disagree with them.

You may rebuke wrongdoing.

You may expose falsehood.

You may sometimes be required to speak with great firmness.

But you must never forget what James refuses to let us forget:

That person was made in the likeness of God.

Something belonging to the Creator’s workmanship stands before you.

And therefore the tongue that says, “Blessed be the name of the Lord,” cannot casually turn around and treat one of God’s creatures as though he were worthless.

That is the terrible inconsistency James exposes.

We imagine that our relationship with God can be separated from our treatment of people.

James says it cannot.

We think worship occurs vertically: God above, worshiper below.

James adds the horizontal dimension.

You cannot honor the Creator while despising what He made.

You cannot praise the Father while continually shredding His children with your words.

You cannot sing beautifully to God on Sunday and speak cruelly to your family on Monday and suppose that heaven is impressed by the song but indifferent to the cruelty.

The same God hears both.

He heard the hymn.

He also heard what you said in the kitchen.

He heard the prayer.

He also heard the conversation in the parking lot.

He heard the Scripture you quoted.

He also heard the rumor you repeated.

He heard the “Amen.”

He also heard the insult.

James is forcing us to bring the whole life before God.

Perhaps that is why the sins of the tongue are so easy to overlook. Words leave no visible blood.

A fist can bruise a face.

A knife can leave a wound.

A harsh word may leave nothing for the eye to see.

But the heart remembers.

Some adults still hear sentences spoken to them when they were children.

“You’ll never amount to anything.”

“You’re stupid.”

“I wish you had never been born.”

“No one will ever love you.”

Years pass.

The speaker may have forgotten.

The hearer has not.

A sentence spoken in thirty seconds may take thirty years to overcome.

There are husbands who have never struck their wives but have beaten them down for years with contempt.

There are wives who know exactly which words will humiliate their husbands and reach for those words whenever anger rises.

There are parents who provide food, clothing, education, and shelter while slowly crushing their children through criticism.

There are churches that have never physically injured anyone but have destroyed people through whispers, insinuations, suspicions, gossip, and character assassination.

And sometimes those doing the greatest damage are the same people who speak most loudly about defending the truth.

James will not allow truth to become an excuse for cruelty.

Truth matters.

Doctrine matters.

Correction matters.

But truth spoken without love can become a weapon in the hands of pride.

One can be correct in content and wicked in spirit.

There is a way of winning an argument while losing something of far greater value.

There is a way of defending orthodoxy while displaying a heart that has forgotten mercy.

There is a way of saying true things about another person that ought never to have been said publicly.

Not every true fact needs to be repeated.

Not every failure needs an audience.

Not every suspicion deserves circulation.

Not every offense requires retaliation.

Sometimes holiness means closing the mouth.

James continues his argument by asking whether a fountain can send forth sweet water and bitter from the same opening.

Nature itself rebels against the contradiction.

We would be astonished to approach a spring one morning and drink fresh water, then return that afternoon and find poison flowing from the same source.

Yet James says we tolerate precisely this contradiction in ourselves.

Blessing.

Cursing.

Praise.

Contempt.

Prayer.

Gossip.

Worship.

Slander.

“My brethren, these things ought not so to be.”

The problem, of course, lies deeper than the mouth.

Jesus said:

“Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.”

The tongue reveals what the heart has been storing.

Eventually the reservoir overflows.

Anger comes out because anger was inside.

Pride comes out because pride was inside.

Envy comes out because envy was inside.

Bitterness comes out because bitterness had been given a place to live.

The tongue does not create every evil it expresses. Often it simply opens the door and lets the heart walk into the room.

That means the answer cannot merely be, “Try harder not to say bad things.”

We need more than improved vocabulary.

We need grace in the heart.

We need God to expose the bitterness before bitterness becomes speech.

We need Him to humble the pride before pride becomes contempt.

We need Him to heal the wound before the wound becomes vengeance.

We need Him to teach us to see another person not merely as an annoyance, rival, enemy, failure, or theological opponent, but as a human being standing beneath the eye of God.

And perhaps nowhere is this more difficult than when someone has genuinely wronged us.

James is not asking us to pretend evil is good.

The Bible does not require victims to call abuse kindness or falsehood truth.

There is righteous confrontation.

There is church discipline.

There are warnings against false teachers.

Jesus Himself spoke severe words when holiness required them.

But there is a difference between exposing evil and enjoying another person’s destruction.

There is a difference between correcting someone and humiliating him.

There is a difference between warning others and feeding gossip.

There is a difference between saying, “This action is wrong,” and communicating, “This person has no worth.”

The gospel teaches us that even enemies are to be viewed beneath the shadow of divine mercy.

Christ said:

“Bless them that curse you.”

That command cuts deeply.

Our nature says:

“They hurt me. I will hurt them.”

“They embarrassed me. I will expose them.”

“They spoke against me. I will speak against them.”

“They made me suffer. I want them to suffer.”

Then Christ stands before us and says:

Bless.

Not because evil does not matter.

Not because justice does not matter.

But because vengeance does not belong to us.

How different Christian communities would become if believers truly took James seriously.

Imagine churches where no one feared becoming the subject of whispered conversations.

Imagine homes where children knew that correction would never become humiliation.

Imagine marriages where anger could be expressed without contempt.

Imagine disagreements where opponents still recognized one another as persons created in God’s image.

Imagine Christians refusing to forward the rumor.

Refusing to repeat the accusation they cannot verify.

Refusing to join the mockery.

Refusing to destroy a reputation merely because everyone else is doing it.

Imagine a believer saying:

“I could say something devastating right now, but I will not.”

That silence may be an act of worship.

Perhaps greater worship than many songs.

Because worship is not merely what comes from our mouths when we are singing to God.

Worship is also demonstrated by what we refuse to let come from our mouths when we are angry with people.

James forces us to ask an uncomfortable question:

What does my speech reveal about my religion?

Not merely what do I say about God?

How do I speak about people?

Especially those who cannot benefit me.

Especially those who disagree with me.

Especially those who have failed.

Especially those who are absent and cannot defend themselves.

Anyone can speak kindly when kindness is profitable.

Grace becomes visible when kindness costs something.

There is tremendous power in the tongue.

A few words can resurrect courage in someone who thought he could not continue.

“I believe in you.”

“I forgive you.”

“I was wrong.”

“You are not alone.”

“I am praying for you.”

“Thank you.”

“I love you.”

Words can become instruments of grace.

A person may be standing closer to despair than anyone realizes, and one compassionate sentence may become a small light in his darkness.

A discouraged minister may continue because someone said, “Your labor has helped me.”

A child may carry confidence into adulthood because a parent repeatedly said, “I am grateful God gave you to me.”

A grieving person may survive another night because someone sat beside him and whispered, “I’m here.”

The tongue that can destroy can also heal.

The mouth that can curse can bless.

And this is where James’s warning becomes an invitation.

Our speech does not have to remain divided.

God can teach us another way.

A way in which truth and love are no longer enemies.

A way in which conviction does not require cruelty.

A way in which disagreement does not require contempt.

A way in which correction does not destroy dignity.

A way in which our speech toward people begins to agree with the praise we offer to God.

Before we speak, perhaps we should remember:

This person was made by God.

This person has wounds I cannot see.

This person may be carrying a burden I know nothing about.

This person will remember some of my words long after I have forgotten saying them.

And God is listening.

Then perhaps our prayer should become very simple:

“Lord, put a guard over my mouth.

Do not let me praise You with lips that destroy others.

Teach me when to speak.

Teach me when to remain silent.

Give me courage to speak truth.

Give me tenderness in how I speak it.

Take bitterness from my heart before it reaches my tongue.

And when I look at another human being, remind me whose likeness I am looking at.”

Because the deepest issue in James 3:9–10 is not merely speech.

It is integrity.

Will the God we praise with our mouths be visible in the way we use those mouths?

Will our Monday conversation agree with our Sunday hymn?

Will our treatment of people confirm what we claim to believe about their Creator?

“Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing.”

Then comes the tender rebuke:

“My brethren, these things ought not so to be.”

They ought not.

And by the grace of God, they need not.

May the tongue that once wounded learn to heal.

May the mouth that once repeated gossip learn to defend the absent.

May the voice that once humiliated learn to encourage.

May lips that have spoken bitterness learn the language of mercy.

And may the praise we offer to heaven become visible in the grace we speak to one another on earth.

Then the same tongue that says,

“Blessed be God”

will also demonstrate that blessing by remembering the sacred dignity of those who are

“made after the similitude of God.”