Recently, a college football referee retired and was asked about the bad behavior of several coaches. During his career, he penalized coaches for slamming their headsets or tossing clipboards onto the field. He said, “You throw something out on the field, I can understand that … if you’re a fourth grader. I would expect more if you’re an adult that’s paid (more than) $5 million a year to coach a major college football team.” While he said most of the coaches were well-behaved, he wouldn’t miss the head coaches who swung caps at him, cursed at him, and even leveled personal threats to have him fired.

When can a coach verbally let loose on an official? Never? After one mistake? Five mistakes? Is yelling at an official at a sporting event ever acceptable, and if so, when? We’ve all experienced it as coaches; an untamed tongue harms. It might be when we played youth sports, and your spirit was crushed because of the demeaning words of your coach. Or maybe your reputation was hurt when you lost control and said things you regret.

James 3 – Words CAN Hurt

Throughout the book of James, there’s one question that holds his theme together: “If you say you believe like you should, why do you behave like you shouldn’t?”

A running theme throughout James’ letter deals with faithful Christian practice, with Chapter 3 focused explicitly on speech. He uses three-word pictures to illustrate the power of words, either for good or bad. Each of these makes the point even though our tongue might be a tiny part of the body, it is mighty. Therefore, we must learn to check or control our language to coach in a God-honoring way.

The Kingdom Coach and Athlete control their tongues as they depend on the power of the Holy Spirit to curb their negative emotions. They know only God can change their hearts and tongues while providing the antidote for their lack of self-control.