Confessing Faults
"Confess your faults (sins) one to another, and pray one for another that ye might be healed" (James 5:16). Private wrongs should be corrected privately (Matthew 18:15). A Christian is doing himself an incalculable injury to try to hide a public sin. The wrongdoer needs to make known his or her repentance of that sin. When a sin is well known, the sinner should publicly make known his or her purpose to quit the wrong. To fail to do so may cause others to do the same sin. He who tries to hide his sin is adding the sin of hypocrisy to the wrong committed. The prodigal son said, "I will arise and go to my father, and I will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight" (Luke 15:18).
Today, we not only have "backsliders," we have "insliders." Backsliders are those who leave the path of right, and insliders are those who have publicly sinned so as to bring reproach upon the church, but, instead of making a public confession and asking for forgiveness of the church, they just "slide into the congregation" and feel forgiven. A Christian who has done a public wrong is never humble enough to be forgiven until he is humble enough to take away the reproach he has publicly brought on the church.
From Our Archives, 1989
By: G. K. Wallace