I’m sure you’ve read the verses in the book of James that talk about the tongue. It is a “restless evil”, says James. He compares the tongue to many things. A tiny ‘spark’ that sets a forest on fire. A small ‘rudder’ that steers a whole ship. A ‘bridal’ in a horses mouth that can be used to guide it around.

James argues that the tongue, although it is small, is the source a great deal of trouble for man.

Every teaching I’ve ever heard on this verse gives a good deal of personal application. Congregations are to control their tongue and this is an excellent argument for that.

But I’m not sure that the congregation is really who James had in mind when he wrote this bit about the tongue.

Possibly for the first time, I noticed that another frequently quoted verse is actually a tiny piece of context that puts a whole new spin on James’ message about the tongue. The very first verses in fact. James 3:1-2:

Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body.

Why does James go directly from a word on teaching and teachers and the fact that every teacher make’s mistakes in his teaching into a discussion of bridling the tongue? I think it’s because the ‘body’ he talks about throughout the rest of the chapter is not one individual body who is guided by his own tongue, but the whole body of believers who is guided by the tongue of their teacher.

Not many should aspire to be teachers because all teachers make mistakes, and with many, many teachers comes many misconceptions and the church ends up ‘set on fire’.

Of course, I don’t think this is the only viable interpretation of this verse, but I think it makes perfect contextual sense. And perhaps it’s a concept churches who turn teaching authority over to small group ministries should consider.

From the time that I was doing small group ministry, I doubt that I can count on two hands the number of times I was accused of being a cult leader. Either to my face or as vague rumors. Of course, it was a combination of flagrantly abusing the word ‘cult’ and not quite knowing how to respond to a really tight knit small group.

We never passed around poison juice. We never entered into death pacts. Although, one time I did shave my head which, over the next few days, was copied by a number of the guys.

Even though the group had it’s problems and I still had a lot to learn about leading people (and still do), the reality was that good things were happening. The guys in the group and myself were learning a lot about what it meant to follow God and be a believer and have faith.

But every time one of these cult rumors would spread, on the outside I would laugh it off. But on the inside I was really insecure. I didn’t want people to think that about me. Eventually, criticisms like those caused me to respond at least a little reclusively. Reading in Nehemiah today reminded me of that time in life and ministry.

Nehemiah is rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem in the face of pretty heated opposition from it’s neighbors. After trying to convince him to stop several times before, a group of men write a letter to king Artaxerxes full of slander that, although from the outside it appears as though it could be true, it simply isn’t. The men present Nehemiah with the letter their threatening to send.

Then I sent to him, saying, "No such things as you say have been done, for you are inventing them out of your own mind." For they all wanted to frighten us, thinking, "Their hands will drop from the work, and it will not be done." But now, O God, strengthen my hands.

In hindsight, I would have liked Nehemiah’s insight and wisdom to take the accusations from his opponents and turn with them to God and say, “But now, O God, strengthen my hands.”

I think that’s pretty cool. Live and learn, I suppose.

It was over four years ago now. Although it seems much longer. I was leading a small group of high school guys. And, of those guys, I was teaching a smaller, more intensive discipleship group.

The discipleship crew would meet once a week and study the Word. I would come each week with a handout to guide our discussions. They would usually be in question-answer format and would also serve as my own notes. Today, one of the guys from that group asked me if he could get copies of those handouts to give to one of his friend’s who is a new Christian.

The question made me a little nervous at first. When I started the small group and discipleship group I was only beginning to explore the more intricate parts of Christian theology; In retrospect, I’m not sure I was a good person to do the job I was doing. So the idea of giving handouts from that time could potentially be quite humbling—and no one likes that (Okay, 95% kidding)!

But, I wasn’t about to be that defensive about my ego. So I obliged and I decided print them out for him. As I’ve been doing so, what I’ve found has been surprising.

When my pursuit of theological understanding finally brought me to questions of destiny and predestiny and of course the larger questions of Calvinism—I fought hard against the argument. I was raised believing staunchly in the absolute free-will of man. Although not on the basis of any spiritual authority, but simply on a kind of that’s-the-way-things-are way. Some of the basic claims of Calvinism cast serious doubt on those ideas.

You see, when I became a Christian, I wasn’t discipled much into anything; no specific doctrinal position—except the discipline to read the bible. So that’s what I did, I read the bible. What I apparently didn’t realize was that  the foundational teachings of Calvinism were being laid in my mind all by themselves—just from reading the bible.

Today, as I’m going back through and reading these handouts, I’m realizing that my thoughts at this time were already Calvinistic in nature. No one had taught me, no one had explained it to me. In fact, my religious upbringing would probably call these claims heretical. Yet, simply searching scripture on my own brought me to what I would later understand as “Calvinism”.

I find that to be pretty fascinating. It bolsters my confidence in the Word of God being able to teach a reader the truth all on its own. That’s pretty cool, I think.