Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.
1 Be not many masters. The common and almost universal interpretation of this passage is, that the Apostle discourages the desire for the office of teaching, and for this reason, because it is dangerous, and exposes one to a heavier judgment, in case he transgresses: and they think that he said, Be not many masters, because there ought to have been some.
The foregoing chapter shows how unprofitable and dead faith is without works. It is plainly intimated by what this chapter first goes upon that such a faith is, however, apt to make men conceited and magisterial in their tempers and their talk. Those who set up faith in the manner the former chapter condemns are most apt to run into those sins of the tongue which this chapter condemns.
Commenting on James 3:1-12
My brethren, be not many masters,.... The apostle having dispatched the subject of faith and good works, which constitute the pure and undefiled religion mentioned in Jam 1:27 which gave rise to this discourse, he proceeds to consider the evidence of a religious man, suggested in Jam 1:26 who is one that bridles the tongue; and enters into an account of the use and abuse...