In chapter 3, James is encouraging the church… trying to get them to understand just how powerful a person’s words and their tongue can be. To expound on this he uses two illustrations to explain this: he talks about a bit in a horses mouth; how something so small can be used to control a massive animal. In the same way, on a huge ship, a small rudder is used to steer such a large vessel. Our tongue is the same way–even though it is small, it has a huge and powerful effect in our lives. James begins to explain this in Chapter 3, verse 5.