The Importance of Confession (Part One)

Acts 19:18 Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed their evil deeds.

I have never been to a church in which the majority of the members confess their sins to each other. The only person confessing is often the pastor, who admits minor shortcomings as anecdotes in the sermons (such as “once I got mad in traffic”). The rest of us, however, are simply not going to reveal our shortcomings—especially to our Christian brothers and sisters. When we have the opportunity to mention prayer requests we usually pick safe non-incriminating topics such as the health of a family member.

Admittedly, many churches encourage accountability groups or accountability partners. While these are very good, the purpose is often subtly different than that of confession. In accountability groups, we don’t typically confess our sins in order to experience freedom or even absolution. Instead we go so that our fellow Christians will ask tough questions that keep us in check. Accountability is more about prevention. Confession is more about repentance.

But even where accountability groups are encouraged, they are not considered essential. I am willing to bet that in most evangelical congregations most Christians do not talk about their sins to anyone but God. Confession to God is important—but so is confession to His body, the Church.

The first question likely to be asked is whether or not audible, interpersonal confession of sin is biblical. Confession is first recommended in Proverbs:

Proverbs 28:13 He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy.

The writer says not to conceal sin—but we cannot conceal our sins from God. Thus, this passage is directing us to confess our sins before other people. In Old Testament Judaism this public confession is also evident in the sin offering and sacrificial system.

Next, we know that Jesus repeatedly chastised the Pharisees and teachers of the Law for concealing their sinfulness and creating a false illusion of righteousness.

Luke11:39 Then the Lord said to him, “Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also?

In addition to this, Jesus told the Pharisees that he could not help them, because they would not admit that they too were sick—as were the Romans and the tax collectors and the prostitutes.

1 John 1:5-10 This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.

Remember, 1 John is written to people who are already Christians, so the writer is not talking about an initial “Good Confession”. By continually concealing our sins, we implicitly claim that we do not sin, making God out to be a liar. In this passage, walking in the light is equated with confessing sin. Walking in the darkness is equated with concealing sin. Walking in the light (confessing sin) allows us to have fellowship with one another and with the blood of Jesus.

James 5:16Therefore 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.

In James, confession of sin to other Christians precedes healing. There are many more examples that make it clear that confession was one of the practices of the early Church.

So, why do we confess our sins to each other? And how does it work? I don’t think I can squeeze all I want to write into one post, so I’ll attempt to work though these questions in part two (and three?).

Feeling Spiritually Homeless

Every now and then I read Michael Spence’s blog at internetmonk.com. His latest post relates
to my thoughts in Learning about Catholicism. While I compared contemporary Christianity to a buffet from which we are offered many flavors, Spence similarly compared the situation to being in a mall with many stores:

“You see, it’s supposed to work like this: The world of churches is like a big mall, and there are many different kinds of stores. You choose one store- ONE- and you go there for everything you need. You are LOYAL to that store. You BELIEVE in that store and what it’s all about; in the way it does things. You persuade others that your store is the one and only store real shoppers patronize. You buy name brand merchandise at every opportunity. It’s your store. Yes, there is a mall, but you only need one store.”

But Spence concludes that his search for “one store” has been fruitless.

“We’ve been Calvinists and Presbyterian, but we can’t go all the way. We love the Anglican and Episcopal churches, with their wonderful worship and liturgy. We find ourselves in Catholic churches a couple of times a year, and we’re deeply drawn by what we see, hear and experience, but we can’t go all the way and buy into it. Not with any of them.”

There are two possibilities presented here:

1. One of the Christian denominations/traditions is truly pure. Its doctrines and recommendations for conducting worship are superior to all others.
2. There are no denominations or traditions that are entirely pure. Each has its strengths and weaknesses which believers must (with God’s help) discover for themselves.

The first position is a difficult one to take, because every tradition seems to have one doctrine or more that I instinctively and intellectually don’t want to accept (mostly on biblical grounds). The second position is problematic because it nearly leaves me to custom-design my faith—even if I am operating from biblical principles.

Missional v. Seeker Sensitive

Mark Driscoll has a knack for defining the difference between a market-driven church that conforms to culture and a missional church that seeks to change culture by translating timeless truth into language that the people of that culture can understand. (you can watch part two of this interview here )

Line Rider

(UPDATE: There is a greatly improved version of the game here)
I found a doodling game which is basically identical to what I’m doing in my head all the time. Yes, I draw lines in my head and imagine a little dude jumping or sledding on them. The game is actually pretty challenging and addictive (the little guy falls off his sled pretty easily). Here’s what you can do if you have a LOTof time on your hands:

Nonviolent resistance v. Passivity

I hope everyone had a merry Christmas. Today I listened to sermon by Rob Bell in which he addresses Jesus’ teachings on love for enemies. Bell argues that when Jesus taught his followers to turn the other cheek, he was not encouraging mere passivity, but was introducing an oppressed people to means of subversive and creative, nonviolent resistance. According to Bell, Jesus was not merely telling people to be “nice” to their oppressors—Jesus was empowering people to force oppressors to confront their own cruelty. You can download the sermon here.

Learning about Catholicism

The Roman Catholic Church is something towards which I felt indifference for most of my life. Admittedly, my interests are heavily shaped by the people I meet. I have friends from a Charismatic background whom I admire, and so was interested in their interpretation of spiritual gifts for a time. I encountered people I admire who are Emergent, Reformed, Baptist who practice street evangelism who are members of the Church of Christ, and who are members of the Christian Church—I have listened to each of them with interest.

The reason I’m interested in Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Anglicanism, therefore, is probably partly because I currently know (or know of) admirable people who are Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Anglican. Of course the admirability of any given person isn’t a reason to accept his or her belief-system and I know very kind considerate people who believe things I can’t accept.

But this aside, the real reason I am fascinated with Catholicism is the issue of authority. By authority I don’t just mean the papal authority but also the authority of longstanding tradition. What Protestantism seems to offer me is a buffet filled with many different flavors of Christianity. I can fill up my plate with whatever suits me best—A pile of Christian activism, some Southern Republican Christianity on the side, a bit of Pentecostalism for some flavor, and throw a hint of liberal Christianity in so as not to offend. I can easily reject any doctrine which disturbs me. There are hundreds of thousands of pastors in this country, all of whom believe slightly different things, so I should have no trouble finding a church that teaches what I am already comfortable with believing. In doing this, I run the danger of conforming God to myself rather than conforming myself to God. If there is nothing about my God that makes me uncomfortable, he is probably a creation of my own design.

I very well may be wrong on this point, but it seems that The Catholic Church has enjoyed a continuity that the heirs of the Reformation have not. Yes, the Reformers claimed they were returning to the uncorrupted early Christian Church. That was their intent, but instead they introduced an age in which countless factions claim different interpretations of that same early church. Catholicism by contrast offered a comparatively unified time-tested interpretation of scripture.

Right now I’m finishingA Biblical Defense of Catholicism by David Armstrong. It is a book of Catholic apologetics written from the perspective of a former evangelical Protestant. The book may have some weaknesses. For instance, I have heard that Catholicism doesn’t really require Biblical proof-texts in the same way that Protestantism does. Even if this is the case, I think the Catholic Church at least maintains that its teachings are consistent with the Bible and that its teachings are certainly not unbiblical.

I hope to finish the book soon—by the end of the week. I’ll probably share more at that time.

The DaSeussi Code

…the world may never know for sure.

I guess the DaVinci Code fad is over with, but oh man does this follow the formula of all those exploitive “Behind the Code” documentaries:

1. Plug the book. (commercial)
2. The vast majority of scholars do not think Dan Brown’s theory has any validity. (commercial)
3. BUT this crazy person we found does. Let’s talk to him/her for an hour, shall we? (more commercials)
4. Conclusion: Gee, this is all so controversial. I guess will never know the real answers. (keep watching)

Putting away the sword?

Those of you who continue to check in on this blog will not find the writings of a person who has everything figured out. I am a young student and am constantly learning what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.

If I had started writing earlier this year, for instance, you would probably find posts in which I struggle about whether or not Christians may kill in a “just war.” I’ve been reading the book Mere Discipleship by Lee Camp, with some good friends. While Camp’s book is not without its problems, it has seriously challenged my belief that Christians are permitted to kill under certain circumstances.

A significant portion of Jesus’ contemporaries were expecting the Messiah to lead a violent revolution against the oppressive Roman government, re-establishing God’s kingdom and the dynasty of David. Instead of being given a king who leads us to war, however, we are given a king who freely lays down his life. By the standards of most just war theory, overthrowing the Romans would have been morally acceptable. They were ruthless tyrants and murderers of the innocent. Yet Jesus responds, “love your enemies” and “do not resist an evil person.”

Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” (Mark 8:34)

Peter knew very well that Jesus was an innocent man. Jesus was arrested by people who clearly meant to do him harm. By the standards of just-war theory, Peter was perfectly justified in drawing his sword and attacking Jesus’ captors. Yet Jesus rebukes Peter publicly:

Then the men stepped forward, seized Jesus and arrested him. With that, one of Jesus’ companions reached for his sword, drew it out and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear.
“Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. (Matt 26:50)

There are so many practical objections to living in this way. Yet it doesn’t seem that any of the apostles were very practical. As they were martyred one by one, Christians had to wonder whether the Church would be snuffed out altogether. Christianity must have seemed “not to work.” Jesus promised it wouldn’t. He told his disciples that the world would hate them because of him. He promised them the cross. But for the Christian, this life is not the end all and be all. We can face death, persecution and shame without fear because Jesus rose from the dead.

Paul was right when he said the resurrection of Jesus is crucial. Because Jesus conquered death, we do not fear violent men. Because we do not fear violent men, the world has no power over us. We belong to a different kingdom, in which there is no violence and no “ends justifies the means.”

I could write much more on this subject and probably will soon. All of this came to a head this Friday when I watched the movie The Mission, which was recommended to me by Kevin Burt. It presents the two different responses to evil and leaves the viewer to decide which is best. It presents the dilemma beautifully and powerfully, and I really recommend it.

Hello Internet, how are you? (hello Kevin, I am tired)

Hello everyone. My name is Kevin and I am nesting myself in the internet. If you check on this blog, you will find rants on theology and comics and more. I have a comic, by the way, which you can find here. Read through the archive, why don’t you? It’s zany, I tell you.

And now for your amusement, laughing babies: