Do We Have To Confess Our Sins To People?

Do We Have To Confess Our Sins To People?

 By: Michael D. Tobin March 21, 2014

   I don't agree with confessing sins to man, as Catholics do, or any other false doctrine, but confessing our faults is an opportunity for growth. The trouble is it's nearly impossible to find any friend in church who has the ancient ability to actually listen before responding or to listen to a response after speaking. I like this picture of a woman hovering and observing such a huge fault. Who's fault is it? Admit it!, she says. Haha. But I digress.

California earthquake fault 1906 photo from: http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=earthquake+fault&id=157F2B1285D0F359669E9E82CFE58E2E8D843296&FORM=IQFRBA#view=detail&id=302A231EABBCB13594D355217D80911297FE83DD&selectedIndex=2

    James 5:16 Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

    One of the things going through my mind since my Bible school days around 1989-1994 is the concept of "confessing your sins." It's not the part of the widely known verse that says to "confess your sins and believe...," in order to  recieve salvation in Christ. But it is the part of confessing in a confessional booth, and what justifies such a thing, when Jesus is our advocate, and there is none other than Jesus in whom we recieve forgiveness, and so many more parts in the Bible that tells us of our own ability to approach God ourselves without need for any other to do so. (Sorry about the run-on sentence. You should read Paul's Epistles. He's the king of run-on sentences, but very humorous and a serious guy.) Of course prayer agreement with others is always an appropriate thing, depending on what's at hand. But this confession thing should be a no-brainer.

    So after seeing a blog that proves my point after two decades of hashing and re-hashing this fault/sin thing in my head, this blog I read has finally pushed me to get this thing in print. (Another fault of mine: I'm a bit correct sentence structure-challenged.)

    Bob Yandian has just written an article titled, "DO CHRISTIANS HAVE TO CONFESS THEIR SINS?" and may be found at this link: http://mariomurilloministries.wordpress.com/category/bob-yandian/

   Now I'm not setting out to discredit or prove anybody wrong. After all, this man would likely dance circles around me with a far more superior understanding of the Bible. But he does echo what I've heard several times from the pulpit, that we don't confess our sins to man, but only God. And that is absolutely true. But that leaves out making amends to those we have harmed after seeing the errors of our ways, and of course as long as making those amends would not be a harmful thing to anybody involved. And unfortunately, from someone as senior as Bob Yandian is, I didn't see anything in his article about how, at least as I have observed, which to me is a sad issue in the church, that we all seem to be living a life where we never offend anybody, and if we do, we have mastered the art of concealing the fact that we do indeed offend others, and very frequently. Because truthfully, we can have some pretty big mouths, and talk quite a bit of smack-talk, disguised as admonishment, correction, preaching and edification of the saints and sinners.

   But what about scripture, which I have NEVER heard anybody preach about, and probably anyone reading this, as well? (Of course nobody reads anything I write. But I write anyway.)

   Only one verse in the Bible tells us to confess our faults one to another: James 5:16 Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that you may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.

   Interestingly, only three Bible versions use the word, faults. And the majority of the rest use the word, sins. And just a couple others use the words, offenses or trespasses. 

   So what is the real word? For argument's sake, publishing laws when copying certain books and publications for language or vocabulary requires the end results of the product to contain a certain percentage of changes in order to be original. So of course, when rewriting the Bible, publishers want to use different words with the same meaning in order to meet the criteria of percentage of changes, yet keeping originality and authenticity of the new publication. And for this reason , I choose to read, memorize and quote the KJV because of its' more accurate vocabulary and words most accurately translated from the most ancient texts before translating into English language. But keeping to the subject, I believe the word is fault.  

   Webster's Dictionary defines these two words, fault and sin, like this:

 Fault:  

 a bad quality or part of someone's character : a weakness in character: a problem or bad part that prevents something from being perfect : a flaw or defect
: responsibility for a problem, mistake, bad situation, etc. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fault

   Sin: 

1

a :  an offense against religious or moral law

b :  an action that is or is felt to be highly reprehensible <it's a sin to waste food>

c :  an often serious shortcoming :  fault

2

a :  transgression of the law of God

b :  a vitiated state of human nature in which the self is estranged from God. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sin?show=0&t=1395534006

   Lately, this has become a pretty big thing in my life, that I have found to be very enlightening, and the practice of making amends and freely discussing meaningful things in person is almost a new thing to me.

   We should be free to admit that we don't know everything, and what's the big deal if we have some faults? It's a big deal when we pretend to NOT have faults. And when we begin to admit, or confess these faults, we then establish trust and reality with those who are our spouses, friends, family and acquaintances.  

   So try this thing called confessing your faults, and be free. 

   John 8:36 If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.