So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” – James 1:19-20 (NKJV)
James is telling us something very important that we should be cognizant of daily: To be swift to hear and slow to speak. We are usually the opposite: We’re usually slow to listen and quick to speak. We’re always ready to jump in with a response. But being slow to listen and quick to speak can lead to miscommunication, unnecessary conflict, and an increase in misunderstandings. A lot of times we respond quickly and in anger or in general, in our flesh instead of taking a beat, praying, and responding in love. Proverbs 15:1 says, “A gentle answer deflects anger, but harsh words make tempers flare.” 1 Corinthians 13 talks about all the actions we can do without love that make us sound like a clanging cymbal or a gong. We have to train ourselves to watch our words and our tone to avoid sounding like that. Nobody wants to hear a clanging cymbal clanging in their ears, nobody wants to hear a gong go off repeatedly next to them, and when we don’t watch our words, that’s what we are and people will not hear you when you’re like that.
One way we could put this into practice is through social media. I wonder if we practiced what James is saying in these verses and we were “slow to post” and prayed about how we should respond to comments, how that would change the landscape of social media and the discourse that we see on there daily. Not everything needs to be said (or shared online). You might think it, you might want to say it, but not everything needs to be put out in the open and we have to have a filter. Sometimes the best thing you can do is shut up. I wonder how many times we disrupt the movement of the Holy Spirit and what God is doing by opening our mouths? I wonder how many people we discourage and become a stumbling block for because of something we’ve said? How much trouble have we ourselves gotten into because we have to get the last word in? We need to be slow to speak.
Later in James, James issues a warning about your mouth. James calls the tongue evil and full of poison, sometimes it praises and sometimes it curses. He said it’s a flame of fire. A fire can spread and cause widespread destruction. Your words and what you say can burn people down, but a fire can also be used for good things. For example, it can warm people up, you can cook on a fire. We have to make sure we’re utilizing our mouth in those postiive ways.
In James 1, James also gives us a reminder to be “slow to wrath; for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” Wrath and being quick to listen and slow to speak go hand-in-hand. This is one of the reasons our relationship with Jesus Christ is so important. If we don’t spend time daily with the Lord, we’re not going to be able to follow Him and live our lives the way He wants us to live. The more you’re with Jesus and spending time with Him, the more you’ll be like Him and the more you’ll put on display the patience, the love, the kindness, and the gentleness that not only characterized Jesus, but are recognized as fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5 and should be the proof that we belong to Jesus.
My prayer is that we would all heed the words of James and be slow to speak, quick to listen, and slow to wrath and that we would be wise in our interactions with others so that the world can see the character of Jesus in our lives.