Copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson, The Message (MSG), The Message Compact Bible, Teal and Brown Python, The Essential Evangelical Parallel Bible (NKJV/ESV/NLT/, The Message Large-Print Devotional Bible, softcover, NIV and The Message Side-by-Side Bible, Large Print: for Study and Comparison, Imitation Leather, Brown, The Message, Numbered Edition, Personal Size, with Topical Concordance, The Message Deluxe Gift Bible--soft leather-look, crosshatch denim. In the book, De Maccabaeis, attributed to Josephus, and found in Haverkamp's edition, vol. One naturally thinks, when this expression is used, of a chariot driven on with so much speed that its wheels by their rapid motion become self-ignited, and the chariot moves on amidst flames.And it is set on fire of hell - Hell, or Gehenna, is represented as a place where the fires continually burn. A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. With all the good which it does, who can estimate the amount of evil which it causes? There was an error while trying to create your account. 159. James 3:6, ESV: "And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. "The holy blessed God said to the tongue: All the rest of the members of the body are erect, but thou liest down; all the rest are external, but thou art internal. We always regard such a man as corrupt to the core. I question much whether this verse be in general well understood. 6. Please enter your email address associated with your Salem All-Pass account, then click Continue. James 3:5-6 MSG. Get your church set-up with online giving, sermon streaming, and more in under 24 hours. 107; and in Erachin, fol. A world of iniquity - This is an unusual form of speech, but the meaning is plain enough; World signifies here a mass, a great collection, an abundance. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell. We have seen that κοσμος signifies adorned, elegant, beautiful, etc., but I can scarcely think that this is its sense in this place. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell. Sorry, an error was encountered while loading the book. 10-12 My friends, this can’t go on. The image which seems to have been before the mind of the apostle was that of a torch which enkindles and burns everything as it goes along - a torch itself lighted at the fires of hell. a vast collection of words: so we also say, a deluge of wickedness, a sea of troubles; and the Latins, oceanus malorum, an ocean of evils. James suggests that all of life is connected, and therefore, but for the grace of God, we cannot keep things from spreading. All rights reserved. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell. So is the tongue amongst our members, that it defileth the whole body: the body politic, a whole nation, filling it with contention, strife, division, and confusion; and the ecclesiastical body, the church, by sowing discord, fomenting animosities, making parties, and spreading errors and heresies, whereby the temple of God is defiled; and the natural body, and the several members of it, even the whole person of a man, soul and body, bringing upon him a blot of infamy and reproach never to be wiped off; as for instance, the vice of the tongue, lying, does; and oftentimes through the tongue, the actions done in the body, which seem good, are quite spoiled: and setteth on fire the course of nature, or "wheel of nature": the natural body, as before, in which there is a continual rotation or circulation of the blood, by which it is supported; this is the wheel broken at the cistern at death, in Ecclesiastes 12:6 or the course of a man's life and actions, yea, of all generations, and the vicissitudes and changes which have happened in them, on which the tongue has a great influence; and so the Syriac version renders it, "and sets on fire the series of our genealogies, or our generations, which run like wheels": or it may intend the frame of nature, the whole fabric of the universe, and the general conflagration of it, which will be owing to the tongue; or because men's tongues are against the Lord, to provoke the eyes of his glory, because of the hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against Christ and his people, of which they will be convinced by flames of fire about them: and it is set on fire of hell; that is, by the devil; for as heaven sometimes is put for God, who dwells in heaven, Matthew 21:25 so hell is put for the devil, whose habitation it is; see Matthew 16:18, and the sense is, that the tongue is influenced, instigated, and stirred up by Satan, to speak many evil things, and it will be hereafter set on fire in hell, as the tongue of the rich man in Luke 16:24.
By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell. An error occurred while accessing favorites. Nor is this enough: I have built two walls about thee; the one bone, the other flesh: What shall be given unto thee, and what shall be done unto thee, O thou false tongue?".
So when the tongue is spoken of as being “a world of iniquity,” it is meant that all kinds of evil that are in the world are exhibited there in miniature; it seems to concentrate all sorts of iniquity that exist on the earth. The word rendered “nature” (, genesis), means “procreation, birth, nativity;” and therefore the phrase means, literally, the wheel of birth - that is, the wheel which is set in motion at birth, and which runs on through life. The Message James 3:6. It produces a disturbance and an agitation that may be compared with the conflagration often produced by a spark. A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. The more literal sense would be that which refers to an individual; but perhaps the apostle meant to speak in a popular sense, and thought of the affairs of the world as they roll on from age to age, as all enkindled by the tongue, keeping the world in a constant blaze of excitement. Published by permission. A man of pure conversation is understood and felt to be pure in every respect; but who has any confidence in the virtue of the blasphemer, or the man of obscene lips, or the calumniator and slanderer? Setteth on fire the course of nature - Φλογιζουσα τον τροχον της γενεσεως· And setteth on fire the wheel of life. The same sentiment, with a little variation, may be found in Midrash, Yalcut Simeoni, par. We'll send you an email with steps on how to reset your password. Read verse in The Message Bible All rights reserved. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson. James 3:6 The Message Bible << James 2 | James 3 | James 4 >> 6 A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. See the notes at Matthew 5:22. If all men would speak only that which ought to be spoken, what a change would come over the face of human affairs! We use the term in the same sense - a world of troubles, a world of toil, a world of anxiety; for great troubles, oppressive toil, most distressing anxiety. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson.
It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell. The very spirit of that world of fire and wickedness - a spirit of falsehood, and slander, and blasphemy, and pollution - seems to inspire the tongue. The more literal sense would be that which refers to an individual; but perhaps the apostle meant to speak in a popular sense, and thought of the affairs of the world as they roll on from age to age, as all enkindled by the tongue, keeping the world in a constant blaze of excitement. Who can number the evils produced by the “honeyed” words of the seducer; or by the tongue of the eloquent in the maintenance of error, and the defense of wrong? Read James 3:1-12. James 3:6 The Message (MSG) 5-6 It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire.