How Much Should You Confess? Biblical Wisdom on Confession

Hey, thanks again for sending in questions related to our recent sermons. As you probably know, we have continued our series in John looking at Jesus’ miracles. And we’ve seen that his miracles are not only a display of his power, they’re not only evidence of his divine claims, but they also put something back together that has gone out of joint since the beginning.

They help restore us to the goodness that we had at the beginning, and they’re a foretaste of the goodness yet to come in the world that will be redeemed. And so this last week we looked at when Jesus called Nathaniel, and he miraculously knows what Nathaniel’s doing under a fig tree. Reminiscent of Adam and Eve in the garden, who were hiding under fig leaves.

Nathaniel is under a fig tree, and he doesn’t expect anyone to see him, but Jesus sees him, and not only sees him but draws him to himself. Instead of being seen and cast out like Adam and Eve were, and deservedly so, Nathaniel is seen and brought near. We said this is part of the goodness being restored of what was at the beginning.

In the beginning, we were totally known. Everything was on the table, nothing was hidden. There was no instinct to hide. There was not even a means by which to hide. And it was paradise. To be fully known and fully loved was paradise. When nothing was concealed and we were accepted, right?

That was paradise. And so Jesus in the calling of Nathaniel is restoring us to that. It is what we will have in eternity. Everything will be known. We will be accepted, we will be included even though everything is known. We can’t wait for the return of paradise in that way, to be fully known and fully accepted. But the question this week is, what should we confess or reveal right now?

If we know it’s better to be fully known and fully loved, then shouldn’t we just confess everything to everybody all the time? Is that wise? Should we keep some parts of ourselves back? Because we said in the sermon, if we’re keeping things hidden, then we lose this benefit of being fully known and fully loved, because nobody fully knows us.

So they can’t fully love us because they don’t even know who it is that they’re loving. So we have to disclose everything in order to be seen to the bottom and loved to the sky. If we don’t disclose everything, if we’re only 20% known, then we can only be 20% loved. Right?

That’s not as good. We know it’s not as good to just keep our guards up against people compared to those relationships where we don’t have to be guarded at all. So if it’s better not to be guarded at all, should we just confess everything, or how much to who? And from Scripture, we’re not given a precise formula of who to tell what when. We are told things like, “Confess your sins to one another that you may be healed.”

And then Paul is very open about his shortcomings as a public speaker. He says he’s not eloquent. He doesn’t have these wise words. So he’s very transparent about his shortcomings, his lack of ability in a way. I mean, he’s very transparent about different sufferings that he’s endured. But at the same time, he doesn’t give full detail in every setting.

Romans 7, when he says, I do what I don’t want to do. I keep sinning. What a wretched man I am. Why won’t I do the things that I know are the right things? What a wretched man I am. He doesn’t tell us what he’s struggling with. He just tells us he has some kind of sin going on.

Similarly, 1 Timothy, when he says, “Here’s a trustworthy saying worthy of full acceptance: Christ came to save sinners, of whom I am the worst.” I am the worst. Present tense, I am the worst sinner. So he confesses he’s still a sinner, but we don’t have any idea what his sin was. And so while being fully transparent generally, there’s a lot of specifics that he leaves out when he’s speaking to a wider audience, and that’s probably a clue.

Throughout church history, there’s a common pattern of different leaders having a small group with whom they confessed everything. I mean, everything. And then a wider group where they were just much more generally describing the sin or sufferings that are in their lives.

Whether it’s John Wesley, who had all these small groups. He had an entire structure of small group systems, and they were supposed to confess everything in their small group. And Wesley was in those groups, but then he also had a group which he described as, this is the place where I can fully unbosom myself, is with this kind of select group, not with the wider community.

Same with Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He wrote the famous Life Together, his kind of magnum opus on how to have community with one another. And confession is central. He would have nightly confession in the seminary that he led and ask other people for forgiveness.

But Bonhoeffer himself only fully disclosed everything to one friend, Eberhard Bethge. And so they were probably following in Paul’s footsteps. Speak generally about what’s going on, but do not neglect to speak fully, transparently, specifically with at least someone. If you’re not known fully by anyone, there’s not one person who knows where all the skeletons are buried.

You got to have that person. That’s part of our health. It’s part of being fully known and fully seen, fully loved. So my strong pastoral advice to you is at least have one person. Hopefully a few more than one. But it doesn’t seem to be necessary to confess everything to everyone all the time.

We hope that was helpful. See you next time.