Church of the Vine

Here is James 5:16 from the NIV and the Message:

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective

Make this your common practice: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed. The prayer of a person living right with God is something powerful to be reckoned with.

This is clearly a powerful verse from the pen of James!  For this study, let’s look at confession of sins, and the results of such courage.

The word confess (eko-homo-logeo) means literally to agree or assent outwardly.  Ek is ‘out of’, or ‘out from’.  Homo is ‘like’, or ‘the same’; and logeo is ‘word’, or ‘spoken word’.  So, to confess is to let come out a person a spoken and outward agreement or assent.  One other note is that ekohomologeo carries an excited, almost joyful connotation.  It’s as it James is saying, ‘joyfully, without reserve, confess your sins to one another!’

The word, sins here is the word paraptoma, which is to descend or fall (ptoma), near(para).  So, sins in this verse, which is often translated as faults, is that occasion of falling, slipping, messing up, coming down from where Christ has called us to be.  James says, ‘joyfully and outwardly speak and assent (confess) whenever this kind of ‘messing up happens’.

Now as strange as that may sound, isn’t it true that to have people who love us with whom we can be this outwardly honest is gift from God?  This is the beauty of the Body of Christ and of being brothers and sisters.  In fact it is even more awesome when we consider that James promises that by this confession we will be healed.  This word is used for both spiritual and physical healing in the New Testament, and it literally means ‘to be made whole’.

Confession of sins to one another is one of the most blessed results of being part of the body of Christ.  The invitation and instruction to confess to one another reminds us that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God; that we are here to bring wholeness to one another, not to condemn, embarrass or shame. 

As God continues to build His Church, may we grow in our willingness to open ourselves, including our weaknesses to one another, and to accept and uphold one another as we do!

• Why is confession of sins to others so difficult?
• What truth are we missing that stops us from freely confessing our sins to one another?
• Why so you suppose that healing is the result of confessing sins to one another?
• What does this instruction say about how Jesus views the Church?
• What might we be learning about the nature of our relationships in the Body of Christ?

May the grace of the Lord Jesus be with us!

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