James has written colorfully about the evils of the tongue and its wild, untamable nature. How do we learn to control it better? James 3:9 suggests one place to start: learning to see others as created in the image of God.

In James 3:7-8, the apostle suggests that human beings know how to tame any kind of animal, but ironically, we can't tame our tongues...

What James teaches about the way we speak reaches a crescendo in 3:5-6: our errant tongues can set our whole lives on fire, and are set on fire by hell itself.

Is anyone listening to this old enough to remember the praise song Pass it On? The song lyrics taught that "It only takes a spark to get a fire going"; the song was talking about spreading the warmth of God's love. But James 3:5-6 uses the same metaphor in a very different way: our words can set relationships on fire.

We've seen how James says we all make mistakes. That's his way of introducing the fact that we all make mistakes in how we speak to one another. In James 3:2-5, he uses different metaphors to suggest just how much of an impact our little words can have.

When we've made a mistake, we sometimes say that "Nobody's perfect." And indeed, James 3:2 suggests that we "all make mistakes often." But what James says is informed by a biblical understanding of what it means to be perfect. Are we "growing up" spiritually?

We've all had good teachers and bad teachers. And apparently, a number of people in the early church wanted the status of being a teacher. But James 3:1 warns that people should instead think seriously about the responsibility that comes with the role...

James uses not only Abraham as an example of faith, but Rahab, the prostitute who hid Joshua's spies in Jericho. This episode explores the implications of holding up a Canaanite prostitute as an example of faith.

In this episode, we go back to Genesis 22 to explore the difficult story of God's test of Abraham, when Abraham was asked to sacrifice his son, Isaac. We need this story to understand the teaching of James 2:21-23.

Some worry when they read James 2:22-24, which uses the example of Abraham to say that we are "justified by works." Is James contradicting Paul, or the teaching of the Protestant Reformers?