The crew of the B-29 Superfortress, The Enola Gay, had no idea in 1945 the amount of power they were about to unleash as they climbed over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. At 8:15 am, they dropped their payload — a bomb called “Little Boy.” Little Boy exploded at roughly 2000 feet above the city. The blast wave and fireball utterly crushed or consumed 5 square miles of human civilization beneath it. Up to 80,000 people died on the day of the blast, never knowing what hit them. Another 60,000 or more died from injuries and radiation in the days, weeks, and months of the aftermath. The terrible event ended a terrible war, but also introduced to the world of men new and horrific anxieties they had never before considered. History was forever changed. Little Boy had around 141 pounds of uranium inside of its core. But all the destructive energy from its blast came from just under one gram of it. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has accurately and poetically compared this to the weight of a butterfly. Such a small amount of uranium was responsible for an appalling, gruesome and barely believable amount of instantaneous death and destruction.
But properly harnessed, the exact same kind of energy from a uranium fissile reaction can be used to power human civilization, energize technology, provide healing, bring life, enliven communities, and generate untold and unforeseeable amounts of productive opportunity.
It is this very potential for terrible destruction and wonderful productivity that James sees in one of the smallest members of our bodies – the tongue. He likens the tongue to the rudder of a cumbersome ship (James 3:4-5a). The pilot of such a vessel can use a comparatively tiny piece of his ship to turn that vessel to wherever he wants it to go, even when he is steering through strong winds over which his ship has exactly no control. He is able to use that rudder to harness the power of wind to point his boat and crew in any productive, positive or safe direction he chooses, and then navigate it all to safety and continued productivity. Likewise, your tongue can be used to bless people, to shed positive light, to build confidence, and to direct those around you toward truth and goodness. Or, as James also notes, it can be used to set the world on fire and burn any goodness in it to a smoldering heap of ashes. Your tongue is like the uranium in an atom bomb – full of potential to affect either great destructive harm, or great positive work. James says no man can control it (James 3:8).
He’s correct, of course. Jeremiah tells us that our hearts are wicked (Jermiah 17:9), and Jesus tells us that out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks (Matthew 12:34-35). So the person with an evil heart will speak destructive things, and the person with a regenerated heart will speak things that are good. A salty spring will produce salty water, and a fresh spring will produce fresh water. So call on God to give you a clean heart and a right spirit (Psalm 51:10), and allow him to make you into a new creature (2 Corinthians 5:17), then guard that heart well, because out of its depths will flow the springs of life as well as the awesome power that the author and creator of those springs has designed into them (Proverbs 4:23).
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