“If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able to bridle the whole body. Behold, we put bits in the horses’ mouths, that they may obey us; and we turn about their whole body.” (James 3:2-3)
The Biblical writer seems to be saying that a person’s tongue out of control is like a runaway horse.
When I was a young boy sometimes when my father would come from the field at noon, he would set me up on one of the mares (female horse) and I would ride her and lead another mare to the pond for water before going back to the field to work. It took very little effort on my part to get them to go in the right direction. I weighed probably less than sixty-five pounds and they each weighed around 1,200 pounds. They were being controlled by a little boy holding a leather strap attached to a bridle with a “bit” that was in the mare’s mouth.
It was not the little boy that controlled those huge animals. They had been “broken” and were trained to yield themselves to the slightest tug on the bridle and the bit.
James is giving us a lesson in getting our tongues “broken” and under control. To do that we must yield every fiber of our being to Christ for His control over us. Gossip is a terrible sin. We must deal with that sin the same as every other sin.
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