A question I’ve gotten several times over the last year or two is “When should I confess my sexual sin to the church?” Sometimes people ask me this another way: “What sins should I confess to my church?”
To start with, let’s (1) figure out what Scripture says about confessing sin and whether we need to confess sin to the church at all. Then we’ll look at (2) the types of sins we need to confess, and (3) at what point we need to confess and what point do we need to simply take it to one or two people.
Is a believer required to confess sin to the church?
In 1 John 1:5-10, John is communicating to us that God is light and sin is darkness. There is no darkness in God—therefore, where God is there is no sin. Only light exists where God is, and if we walk in light, John says, we have “fellowship one with another. . .If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Living free from sin seems to be tied into having fellowship with others. But is John actually saying that confessing our sins needs to happen in front of the whole church?
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