Certain passages of Scripture refer directly or indirectly to the tongue and its indiscipline. We could with not very much difference refer to the voice of a person or of people. In todays Theological Commentary we consider that something that we often take rather for granted, our words, may have an influence for good or ill far beyond what may have been intended.

There are many examples of cases in which the tongue has seemed to illustrate only too clearly the strictures in the Epistle of St. James, when he refers to the tongue as a fire.

"The tongue is an unrighteous world among our members (he says), staining the whole body, setting on fire the cycle of nature, and set on fire by hell"  (James 3:6).

In the Greek there is something of a pun in what he says here: the tongue sets on fire the course of "geneseos" (in which we see our word genesis), but itself is set on fire by "Geennes", in English Gehenna or Hell. The Satanically inspired loose comment, in other words, can start all sorts of terrible things going.

This makes me think of those times in the Soviet Union or China when some loose word could put you in the power of an informer - indeed in Maoist China, through fear nearly everybody was acting as an informer on his neighbour. Right here in the Cayman Islands it must be said that the power of the undisciplined and irresponsible tongue for years used to damage people's standing seriously in significant Government departments.

Conversely, James says that if any one makes no mistakes in what he says, he has his whole self under control, like a horse with a bit in its mouth, or like a boat being guided well by the will of the pilot through the use of a small rudder.

In biblical thought, then, the spontaneous expression, which perhaps is given inordinate value and praise in the modern world, may all too likely come from evil rather than good. The good word or helpful, uplifting speaking in Isaiah 50:4 is described in terms of something that is taught.

The Scriptures recognise that spontaneous expression is not intrinsically a good thing. The important thing is that what is expressed be good and right. For that to be the case there must be direction from beyond the speaker; there must be teaching from a good source.

A radical humanist may, of course, dispute that, and may say that humanity must draw from its own moral resources. The pupil, he might say, learns not from the teacher, but from his own reactions to or interpretations of the teaching. But run along that track for any distance and you are close to saying that the baton of knowledge or insight can never be handed over from one mind to another.

The Scriptures as well as the assumptions underlying the use of schools in human civilisation support the view that the good thought, word or deed comes by a process of teaching by God Himself, or through human agency.

S. Mark 8: 31-end shows St. Peter acting spontaneously - and unadvisedly, as we should say -when Jesus teaches the disciples that He must suffer and be rejected and killed by the authorities, and then rise again. Peter's spontaneous rebuke of Jesus earns him a greater rebuke: "Get behind me, Satan!"

For Jesus sees, in St. James' terms, a tongue being set on fire by Gehenna.

The unrebuked tongue of Peter could set fire to the calling of both Jesus and His disciples, whom He was teaching. Peter was not right to imply that what the Lord was saying was foolishness, indeed he was very wrong indeed. So Jesus then warns all the disciples that if they would continue to follow Him, they should expect to encounter a cross as well.

To persist in the following of Jesus we have to draw on a wellspring of resources that goes deeper than a surface spontaneity. We have to follow what we are taught from a resource that runs deeper than our own spirit.

It is not Aspontaneous@ to be willing to lose one's own way of living for the sake of a greater good - but this is what Jesus teaches his disciples to be prepared for, when he invites us to lose our life for His sake and the Gospel's. Then, He says, we will truly not have forfeited our life and soul.

In these days of information explosion through the media and the internet, circumstances that are of course far different from what St. James encountered, we could add to Athe tongue@ its electronic equivalent, the keyboard.

What I have previously called the "loose talk of our time' is often in the media, suggesting that religious language in general is dangerous and to be avoided because some who purport to be religious clearly are dangerous.

Pope Benedict too is criticised because he has pointed out that some religious language is indeed dangerous because of the defect of its basic unreasonableness - not because it is religious. And that's precisely the point. True discipleship, which is a life's work for every Christian, must always be something that is being taught, and from a verifiably good Source.

Isaiah 50:4 implies too that if we want to have the sort of tongues, if we want to speak the kind of words, that will lift up the depressed and refresh the weary, we need to have not merely the spontaneity of human cheeriness, but a "tongue that is taught".

This should be encouraging to us as we seek to progress in our discipleship. It is not by our own natural efforts and personalities that we can make a genuine difference to people's lives and the world around us. The words that will make that difference will be from tongues - or pens or keyboards - that are taught.

And as it is said elsewhere in Isaiah, our Teacher is very near us, and when we call humbly upon Him, He will hear and come to our aid. We will have the words of eternal life and point people to the incarnate Lord, who revealed God and redeems man. It is when we do not allow our tongues to be taught, but let them go running along on their own steam, that they show themselves to be the instruments of the enemy.

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