Tiago 3
Charles Spurgeon · Citado em PreceptAustin
Tiago 3
Spurgeon reminds us that "Behold is a word of wonder; it is intended to excite admiration. Wherever you see it hung out in Scripture, it is like an ancient sign-board, signifying that there are rich wares within, or like the hands which solid readers have observed in the margin of the older Puritanic books, drawing attention to something particularly worthy of observation." I would add, behold is like a divine highlighter, a divine underlining of an especially striking or important text. It says in effect "Listen up, all ye who would be wise in the ways of Jehovah!" Gary Holloway - Strong winds are mentioned to show the danger of misusing a rudder. One small slip can sink the ship. One small slip of the tongue can also destroy lives. (James & Jude - Page 79) A very small rudder - Ancient rudders were more like blades and not like single rudders we see on ships today. Jon Courson - Just as surely as an insignificant-looking rudder controls an entire ship, or a little piece of metal controls a powerful horse, so the tongue, weighing a mere twenty ounces, can either bring direction or destruction—for truly the power of life and death is in the tongue (Proverbs 18:21). (Jon Courson's Application Commentary) Roy Gingrich - In the two illustrations, men use a small thing to control a big thing to do a lot of good. In the application, the body’s evil passions use a small thing, the tongue, to unloose a big thing, the body, to do a lot of evil (damage). The one point in common in the illustrations and the application is the great effect brought about by a small thing. (Book of James) John
Tiago 3
Spurgeon - It would be a monstrosity, a thing to be wondered at, and stared at as unnatural and absurd if a fig tree started bearing olive berries and it is just as unnatural for a Christian to live in sin (ED: HABITUAL). Can he so live as to bear the fruits of iniquity instead of the fruits of righteousness? God forbid that it should be so! Dan McCartney: Figs, olives, and grapes were and are the primary staples of Mediterranean agricultural life, and the recognition that each kind of plant produces its own distinctive fruit was long proverbial in both Jewish and Greco-Roman sources. The rhetorical question echoes the saying of Jesus that one cannot obtain good fruit from a rotten tree (Matt. 7:16–18; 12:33). (James Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament) Douglas Moo - "As the fig tree cannot produce olives or the grapevine figs, so the pure heart cannot produce false, bitter, harmful speech." (CAVEAT - Well, not as one's habitual practice for sure!) (The Letter of James) Can (1410)(dunamai) means able to do something. Nor can salt water produce fresh - James gives another impossibility. In spiritual terms, the only heart that can produce "pure" speech is one that is regenerated (born again) and "regulated" so to speak (filled with the Spirit). Jesus gives us a good commentary on the illustrations of James declaring that "A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit....So then, you will know them by their fruits. (Matt. 7:18, 20)" Similarly He said “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit. (Mt 12:33) What is James' point? He is implying that if we are genuine believers we should bring forth fruit or water (so to speak) that is consistent with our new birth and the new power of the indwelling Spirit to produce "good fruit" or "fresh water." C. Leslie Mitton: A fresh water lake can be relied on to contain fresh water, and a salt lake salt water (like the Dead Sea). But with the human tongue, fickle and unreliable, it is now one thing, now another. Spurgeon - Unless you are regenerated, born from above by a new and heavenly birth, you are not Christians, whatever you may be called, and you cannot, produce the fruit which is acceptable to God any more than a fig tree can produce olive berries Hiebert observes that "James draws no stated conclusion from these illustrations. But the examples cited so obviously condemn man's inconsistency that no application is needed." (Commentary on James or digital copy) Warren