Therefore confess your sins to one another
so that you may be healed. The effective
prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.
James 5:16

In Chapter 5, James encourages readers to express their dependence on God, while in verse 16, he points out that Christians should also pray with one another. In previous verses, he asked  believers to respond to trouble by praying to God, to cheerfulness by singing songs of praise, and to illness or spiritual weakness by calling for church elders to pray for them.

We also see in verse 16 that it should be common practice for Christians to confess their sins to each other and pray for one another so that they may be healed. As in previous verses, some Bible scholars read the word “healed” here as a reference to healing from physical illness. Others understand it to mean healing from discouragement and spiritual weakness. In either case, this healing requires Christians to confess their sins and pray for each other. However, James offers no details about what this should look like in practice. Are they to stand before the church congregation and announce all their sins from the prior week? That seems unlikely. More likely, James’ idea is of Christians being in close relationships with other Christians. Christians need fellow believers with whom they can be vulnerable; people whom they can trust with the sins they struggle with the most and can pray for them to overcome those sins.

In the modern world, very few Christians practice this in any specific way. We’re often too afraid to be that vulnerable. Yet James’ command is for us as much as it was for his original readers. The church would be far healthier if more of us prayed for each other with unconditional love to overcome sins. After all, James writes that prayer works. God listens and responds. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective because God hears us and works on our behalf.

We break our allegiance with the world and its broken standards when we confess our sins. This allows us to realign ourselves with Christ. We begin to “walk in the light, as he is in the light” because forgiveness is available through Jesus’ atoning sacrifice.

by Janice Croley