Harsh Words

Harsh words are not automatically sinful, though an emotionalistic culture might feel as if they are unjust in themselves.  This can be seen in the church when some people think the Bible actually condemns using the word fool in Matthew 5:22, when it is very clear inside and outside the context of that verse what the Bible is really prohibiting.  For one thing, as my first sentence acknowledges, this is never condemned in Mosaic Law, the Bible's central moral revelation (Romans 7:7) which both Jesus (Matthew 5:17-19) and Paul (Acts 24:14) obviously affirm despite superficially appearing--to fools, ironically--to reject them.

Matthew 5:22 itself is about baseless anger, sometimes translated as anger "without cause," which produces malice, not about random words supposedly having some sort of inherent immorality, which would be logically impossible as it is because words do not have any fixed or intrinsic meaning.  The meaning of any word is only what the user intends by it, and in this case, Raca is a term of contempt, which, although it is not always immoral to hold towards someone (Daniel 12:2, Isaiah 66:24), is about the intention and not mere language.  Jesus himself calls certain people fools later in the very same book of the Bible, in fact (Matthew 23:17)!

Elsewhere in the Bible, one sees that it is rational and righteous to call some people fools or foolish if they truly are a fool (Psalm 14:1, 53:1, Galatians 3:1), such as when Proverbs repeatedly refers to fools (including in Proverbs 26:3-12), so Jesus would not be condemning the arbitrary word itself, which could even be used sarcastically and teasingly and is like all other words a flexible social construct.  He is condemning malice and slander.  This is what James 3:9 also condemns: the use of speech to degrade people made in the image of God, not all speech that is subjectively unpleasant or objectively harsh yet truthful.

Now, James 3:7-8 is exaggerating about how no person can tame the tongue, since there is no such thing as unsurmountable sin, including those of words, as the Bible plainly teaches (Deuteronomy 30:11, Job 1:1, Matthew 5:48).  Moral perfection is always logically possible because something cannot be obligatory unless you are capable of actually doing it (for instance, I cannot be obligated to fly if I do not have the capacity or to resolve a global political issue if I do not have the power to do so).  Aside from the Bible, if something is good or evil, perfection in how one lives is by necessity possible even if it is extraordinarily difficult for someone.  Also, James 3 is separately exaggerating when it says the tongue is set on fire by hell.  It is not literally on fire, and hell is a place of fire where the wicked are burned to death after their resurrection rather than something that affects this life (Matthew 10:28, 18:8).

In the same way that James 3 is saying that hell enflames the tongue, though this organ is not on fire and is not caused to do anything by a non-sentient, future afterlife realm of punishment and cosmic execution, James 3 does not mean that no one can avoid verbal sins.  By condemning the cursing of humans made in God's image, it is also not saying that words like "fuck you" in a playful or otherwise non-malicious context, as if cursing in the Biblical sense is using profanity!  Again, only the intention really matters with such things.  As constructs to be used and tossed aside when a better term is thought of, words are not good or bad.  They are arbitrary sounds and symbols.