Re: Public Confession
Submitted by F.O.D. on May 31 1999 at 15:52:41
In reply to Re: Public Confession Submitted by Andy on May 30 1999 at 02:00:00
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The NIV translation I read uses the word "sin" in James 5:16, but I agree, the intent there is to deal with problems (including physical sickness) that have arisen in the life of someone who has already committed himself to Christ, and has sinned as a Christian. 1 John 1:9 talks about confessing your sins, but to God rather than to the church. However, confession is strongly tied to repentence (the former ain't much use without the latter), and in Acts we see examples of people publicly renouncing and repenting from their sins, so that gives us at least one example of public confession. The example I have in mind is Acts 19:17-19. Those who had practised sorcery gathered up their scrolls (worth tens of thousands of dollars) and burnt them publicly. Actually, now that I've opened my Bible up in front of me, I can read v18 "Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed their evil deeds." So there it is, then. Public confession of sins is perfectly normal. Now with respect to a "sacremental" confession of sins, the liturgical churches like the Anglicans (Epscopalians) have a point in the service where all together the whole congregation reads a prayer of confession and repentence based around the 1 John 1 verse. It's actually a beautiful thing to do, a great moment to bring your heart before God and ask him to clean it. But it's in general terms, not a specific confession..."forgive us for the wrong we have done in thought, word and deed, and for the good we have left undone." I don't think I've heard of confession of specific sins being done in quite the same way as Ben's church is asking him to. I think it troubles me a little what they are asking him to do, since one will never feel comfortable in laying out one's darkest things before the other people church, and rightly so, in my opinion. You don't want to be a stumbling block for your brothers. So in that sense, Ben, I think it's fine if you want to make the confession of the boylove related stuff before us rather than in front of the church. My concern is that by forcing a believer to make a confession in this way, the church actually trivialises the confession a little, because the person is supposed to confessing everything, but cannot do that, so there's a degree of hypocrisy there (and Ben, I'd be pretty sure you're not the only one there who isn't publicly confessing literally everything) But on the other hand, I suppose the public confession is useful as a symbolic statement of Ben's repentence and acceptance of Christ, the full details of which are hidden in his heart and revealed in full openness before God himself. In most of our churches, in having a baptism ceremony or something similar, they will ask us "do you repent of your sins and accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour?", to which we reply "Yes, I do." Ben's confession ceremony seems to be much the same, only taking the confession bit a little further. In short, a coerced public confession troubles me somewhat, but a public confession coming from the person out of his own heart is a great thing and a great way of declaring before the forces of darkness that you have changed your allegiance and have returned to the King of Light. And there are biblical examples of this kind of public confession. So Ben, I would say you have the freedom to make your public confession before us, and we will accept it. But see that it is coming from your own heart. Is it something your heart says you must do? If so, then hurry up with it! If not, then, God does not need our ears here to hear your cry! :) Love, F.O.D. |