fig bearing grape vines

James 3:7-12

The key words here are: tongue, mouth, tame. James makes some contrast between our ability to tame animals and our ability to tame our tongue. He uses several word pictures: the tongue as a poisonous snake, fresh water salt springs, olive bearing fig trees, and fig bearing grape vines. He uses these word pictures to cause the reader to stop short and realize how unnatural it is for our tongues, which have been redeemed by God, to both praise God and curse men.
The tongue in these last two passages is described as a seperate entity that has its own will. Of course, James recognizes that the tongue only speaks according to the will of the person. What he is saying is that just as a tree is known by the fruit that it bears, so a person is known by what they say. This echoes the teaching of Jesus: out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.
It woudl be easy to say that this passage means that I need to be careful what I say. There is certainly some truth to that. However, I think that the application goes much deeper. If the tongue only speaks according to my will and if what I say is a result of what is inside, then I need to get the inside cleaned up. From the rest of the Bible, I can see that while I bear the responsibility to "live clean" the only person who can actually make me clean is the Holy Spirit. God, please fill me with the Spirit so that when I speak, I speak words of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and self-control. Let the fruit of my mouth reflect your character. Let the words I say reflect the fact that you live in me.

i love it when a plan comes together...

Romans 15:7-13

Observe:
Key words: Accept, praise/glorify God, Gentiles
Comparisons: accept each other as Christ has accepted us

Interpret:
Paul is transitioning from looking out for the weaker brother to the master plan of God. As Christ has accepted us (with grace, not by merit, etc.) we should accept each other. This seems to remind Paul of the controversy between Jew and Gentile and so he proves that God's intent was always to bring th Gentiles in to his blessing - that through the nation of Israel, the rest of the world was to be blessed and brought to a relationship with God. An OT understanding (simplified) would be that as Israel followed God's law they would be blessed in such a way that it would capture the attention of the surrounding nations and they would turn from their gods to the true God and therefore enter into the relationship and blessing of God. However, looking back on history, we see God's plan come together in ways that were not expected: he blessed the Gentiles through Jesus (a Jew and also His Son).

Apply:
The last verse strikes me. If I want to impact my world with the hope of God, I need to rely on the Holy Spirit, trust God and allow him to fill me with his joy and peace. Then hope will flow out of me. This means that times like this - meditating on and studying God's Word - are essential to the impact that I will have. This means that my prayer time and my times of quietness and communion are essential to the impact I will have. This means that the impact that I have is not my impact but the impact of the Holy Spirit as I allow him to fill me and work through me. My job is to make space for Christ.