James 3:1-5. A warning from James to those who teach the Word of God - James hopes they are few and that they are wise, because teachers are judged with greater strictness. We all make mistakes, but teachers have a greater resonsibility. They are like the pilots of large ships - the slightest mistake in adjusting the rudder can cause the whole ship to go vastly off course. Our tongues may be small, but they can do great things, and a forest can be set ablaze by a small fire.

We look to our teachers and experts to guide us, so it is especially important that they speak truthfully, correctly, and exercise discretion when speaking. If they teach the wrong thing, or speak without first verifying what they are saying, their statements then have an exponentially harmful effect - their mistake is magnified and dispersed through the people. often with very harmful consequences. For a secular example - look at the number of times a reporter's false or incorrect tweet gets retweeted versus how many times the correction is shared! The damage caused by the false tweet is unfixable - those falsehoods become "truth" in many minds. This is bad, obviously, for a reporter, but so much worse when done by a teacher of the faith. In that case, God's Word gets distorted! I can think of several priests today who are actively teaching things contrary to God's Word. They are doing great damage and will be judged more strictly, according to James.

So we need to be careful when acting as teachers of the faith, discretion is most definitely advised. We all have the duty to spread the Word, but we must be careful to speak properly. The best thing to do is open ourselves to the Holy Spirit and say only what he wants us to say, when he wants us to say it, in the way he wants us to say it. If we have a teaching position, this is even more important!

Funnily enough, Father Mike Schmitz mentioned this very reading, saying much the same thing, in his Bible in a Year podcast for today!

(Also, I really like that yesterday I used the example of a car being controlled by the will of its driver, and today I got "Look at the ships also; though they are... driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs.")