CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
James 4:11. Speak not evil.—Backbite (Romans 1:30; 2 Corinthians 12:20). Omit “and” before “judgeth.”
James 4:12.—Read, “There is one lawgiver and judge.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— James 4:11-12
Criticising Persons.—Again and again we are reminded how thoroughly St. James was imbued with the spirit and the teachings of our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount. This paragraph presents a fresh instance. It is an evident echo of our Lord’s familiar words, “Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured unto you.” St. James does not, however, take precisely the same point of view. To him the habit of thinking and speaking evil of brethren is a sign of triumphant self-conceit, which sets a man above everybody else, and even above the law.
I. Criticism is a power of human nature with a mission of blessing.—If everybody was merely receptive, the world would make no progress, and evil would have unchecked facilities. There must be those among us who can see the other side, take things to pieces, discover and show up faults. They may not be pleasant people; but they are most necessary ones. Art, science, and religion would fare ill without them.
II. Criticism can be exercised rightly about things, and about the actions of persons.—We can criticise a picture, a statue, an animal. And we may criticise the actions of corporate bodies, societies, churches, nations. It may even come to be our immediate duty to criticise the actions of individuals, and to say stern and severe things about them. And when it is our duty, we may not, under any plea, hesitate to say the seemingly evil things that have to be said.
III. Criticism must be put into the strictest limitations when it is exercised about persons.—And especially about fellow-Christians, over whose reputations we ought ever to be most jealous. The distinction between criticising the actions of persons and criticising persons is not usually set forth. It may be right to say, “The man has done a wrong thing”; but we have no right to say, “The man is a bad man.” It is that evil-speaking of persons that both our Lord and St. James reprove. Judging persons is God’s reserved and exclusive right. It is breaking the law to exercise a power which we are forbidden to exercise.
SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES
James 4:11. The Mischief wrought by Evil-speaking.—“Speak not one against another, brethren.” One of the most painful signs of human depravity is the almost universal disposition to think evil and to speak evil of others. There is indeed something worse than that—we actually find pleasure in thinking and speaking the evil. It is often a most humbling self-revelation to find ourselves actually pleased at hearing something to the detriment of another. The bad spirit in us is sadly nourished by the daily reading in the newspapers of men’s wrong-doings. Our minds are degraded by being constantly filled with stories of the vices and crimes of men. We become interested in evil rather than in good.
I. Mischief is wrought by evil-speaking in the evil-speaker.—Our Lord put this among the things that coming out of a man defile the man. It is always a moral mischief to allow an evil disposition to gain expression. It strengthens itself by expression. What we have to do with all sinful motions in our members, and all evil tendencies, is to stifle and silence them. This is emphatically the case with the disposition to see evil in our brother, and to speak of the evil. It is far better to say nothing about our brother if we cannot say something good. The habit of seeing and dwelling on the evil so grows on a man that by-and-by he gets a jaundiced vision, and can see nothing but the evil; and then he finds his spirit soured, and his power of enjoying human friendship taken away. Nobody wants the disagreeable man, for he sees good in nobody.
II. Mischief is wrought by evil-speaking for those evil spoken of.—Here the way in which the ill word starts reports that grow into ruinous slanders needs to be considered. But this is very familiar. It is fresher to trace the mischief done to the heart of the man who is spoken evil of. If the evil is true, reporting it only hardens the man, and puts hindrances in the way of his recovery. If the evil is untrue, the man is embittered by the sense of injury done to him, and broken off from helpful human fellowships. It may be added that too often an evil report has actually ruined a man’s life-prospects.