James 5:16 occurs in a context dealing with sick Christians and healing. In that context, it teaches that we are to agree with each other about the character flaws in our lives that lead to discrete sins, and pray for each other that these flaws--and the whole person--will be healed. This sensible reading is supported by the Byzantine New Testament text tradition, which is to be preferred for this verse.
The main theme of the overall passage James 5:14-20 is the manner in which a church should seek the healing of a sick member. Confession and forgiveness are both a part of this. However, because James 5:16 tells us, in this context, to “confess” to “each other,” it has traditionally been taken out of context for use as the principal passage usually cited in support of the practice of auricular confession–i.e, confession of sin or of sins to another person who is not a person directly damaged by our actions, usually a church leader, for purposes of prayer, restoration, and, in some traditions, absolution of the sins confessed. The rest of the context tends to get lost in contentious issues about auricular confession.
So, momentarily limiting our attention to James 5:16, English translations of that verse either tell us that Christians should confess their “faults” to “each other,” and pray for the “healing” of those “faults” (and their physical consequences, 1 Corinthians 11:27-32), or that they should confess their “sins” to “each other,” for the same purpose. In English, the words “faults” and “sins” certainly convey different meanings: the word “faults” appears to imply underlying character defects or character flaws are in view, whereas the word “sins” (plural) appears to imply individual wrong acts are the intended focus. So the difference is important. What should we be confessing to each other when seeking healing?
In the King James Version, James 5:14-20 reads:
14 Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: 15 And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. 16 Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
17 Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. 18 And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.
19 Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him; 20 Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.
James 5:14-20 (KJV) (bold type added; links in the text are to Bible Hub’s online lexicon entries to the words in the Stephanus 1550 Greek text)
The World English Bible and a few other minor modern translations also use different “sin” words in verses 15 and 16:
14 Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the assembly, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord, 15 and the prayer of faith will heal him who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16 Confess your offenses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The insistent prayer of a righteous person is powerfully effective. 17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it didn’t rain on the earth for three years and six months. 18 He prayed again, and the sky gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.
19 Brothers, if any among you wanders from the truth and someone turns him back, 20 let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.
James 5:14-20 (WEB) {again, the links point to an online lexicon)
On the other hand, most modern translations use the word “sins” in both verses 15 and 16, much as in the New International Version:
14 Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. 16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
17 Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. 18 Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.
19 My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, 20 remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins.
James 5:14-20 (NIV)
So, is there really a difference between the word “sins” used in verses 15 and 20, and the word translated “faults,” “offenses” or “sins” in verse 16, and, if so, does the difference in the word used make a difference in the meaning of the passage?
The answer to the first part of this question is that whether the word used is actually different depends on which Greek textual tradition you consult. There are only a few cases in which a difference between the words used in the Greek New Testament textual tradition which developed around Byzantium (in modern Turkey) and the textual tradition which developed around Alexandria, Egypt, is significant enough to affect the meaning of a passage. This is one of those few times. As shown by both the 1550 Stephanus Greek text of verses 15-16 (follow the link) and the very authoritative 2005 Robinson and Pierpont scholarly edition of the Majority Byzantine Textform (see my Bibliography page), the large majority of the many available Byzantine texts use the word hamartias in verses 15 and 20, but use the word paraptōmata in verse 16. So, if you follow the Byzantine text tradition (as the KJV did), the answer is “yes, the words are different.” (See also the texts labeled RP, Greek Orthodox, Scrivener’s, Stephanus and Beza in James 5:16 parallel Greek text on Bible hub). On the other hand, the texts in the Alexandrian tradition which include James (some do not) uniformly use some form of the word hamartia in all three verses. So, if you follow the Alexandrian texts, the answer to the first part of the question is “no, the words are the same.” (Follow this link to verses 15-16 in the SBL Greek New Testament, which follows the Alexandrian textform). For reasons too abstruse to go into here, most modern translations nearly always follow the Alexandrian textform wherever it differs from the Byzantine textform, including in this verse. For historical reasons of my own (which include that William Pierpont, one of the editors of the 2005 Robinson and Pierpont Greek New Testament, was my first Greek teacher), I believe most modern translators’ almost complete reliance on the Alexandrian texts is misplaced.
The answer to the second part of the question is, assuming that the Byzantine sources were right and James used two different words, “yes, the two words have different meanings.” As will be discussed further below, paráptōma (accusative plural paraptōmata), the word used in most Byzantine texts of verse 16, primarily denotes “a falling away,” particularly after having once been close beside the person or thing fallen away from. Thus, paráptōma can also connote a ” lapse, slip,[or] false step,” which becomes a “trespass” when the thing fallen away from is a law, a moral standard or the truth, and a “sin” when the person fallen away from is God. The emphasis is on falling away, and the falling away need not consist of or result from committing an evil act or being guilty of a discrete omission. So paráptōma can reasonably be translated as a “fault” in the usual English sense: a weakness or flaw that causes a failure, a falling away.
On the other hand, hamartia (nominative plural hamartias), the word used in verses 15 and 20 and in the Alexandrian texts of verse 16, primarily denotes “missing the mark,” as in missing a target in archery. Where it is used in a moral or religious sense, hamartia always refers to a bad action or evil deed (of commission or omission), which is evil because it misses the “target” set by a divine or human law, or a pattern or aggregate of such discrete evil deeds (which may, in turn, reveal the underlying force that caused them–“sin” itself, as in the letters of Paul). In the New Testament, it is uniformly used to denote evil deeds, singly or in the aggregate, or the force of “sin” itself. It is not used of human weaknesses or character flaws, even when they predispose to evil deeds.
Next, it is reasonable to ask whether verse 16 (read in context) makes better sense if paraptōmata or hamartias is used in that verse. On the one hand, verses 15 an 20 are clearly speaking about “sins,” in precisely the sense of discrete evil deeds. Verse 15 says that one of the things that happens when an elder prays for a sick believer, laying hands on them, is that if the sick person has “committed” or, literally, “done”– pepoiēkōs, perfect participle active of poieō, “to do, act, make”–sins, those sins will be “forgiven.” Sins, discrete wrong acts, or, more properly, the moral consequences of those wrong acts–their “guilt” and the demand for payment or retribution for them–is precisely what is usually said to be “forgiven.” So hamartias makes perfect sense in verse 15. Similarly, verses 19 and 20 speak of the case of a believer who has wandered way from the truth and, as a result of straying, has become a “sinner”– hamartōlós, a blatant sinner, one who is constantly missing the mark in their actions. James says that one who restores such a person to the truth will save them from death and cover over a “multitude” of “sins” (hamartias). Here, again, James must be speaking of discrete wrong acts, because there are a “multitude” of them–and also because weaknesses or character flaws need to be transformed or “healed,” not covered over.
This brings us to verse 16. Verse 16 appears to be a part of the same context of healing and restoration of sick believers as verses 14 and 15. It commands us to “confess”–this verb is in the imperative–something to “each other” (allēlois). As explained in the previous post on “The Question of Confession,” the verb used here, eksomologéō, means to agree wholeheartedly, to unreservedly say the same thing. This verb is used with the indirect object “to each other,” not, as we might expect, merely “to God.” So the verse is commanding us to agree wholeheartedly with each other about something, and then to pray for each other about that thing, so that we may be “healed.” But what is the thing we are to agree wholeheartedly with each other about and then pray for each other about?
If the Greek word used to describe the thing we are to agree with each other about is our hamartias, this would support the longstanding Christian practice of telling each other, or at least, telling a duly-appointed clergyman, about a laundry list of wrong acts that require forgiveness–because forgiveness, or absolution, is what discrete wrong acts require. However, that interpretation, traditional though it is, makes it difficult to understand how the last half of the verse works. Obviously, if I tell someone else, who has not been living my life with me, about a list of bad deeds I have done, that person will have little choice but to believe me–and, in that sense, agree with me–about what I have revealed and about the wrongness of it. But what is there in my laundry list of completed wrong acts that my confessor can possibly pray for me about? The acts are all completed, and my confessor’s prayers will not change them. And how can a completed past act be “healed?” It can either be forgiven or held against me. That is all.
On the other hand, if the things I am to confess in verse 16 are my “faults”– paráptōmata –the verse makes perfect sense. First of all, I can wholeheartedly agree with other believers about my weaknesses and character flaws, with an agreement that actually means something. Other believers who were not present to see a sinful act cannot know of it unless I, or another witness, tells them. On the other hand, other believers are often much more aware of my flaws than I am. When I become aware of a flaw, I should ask for prayer. And when others become aware of some of my flaws, they should come to me–as this verse, verses 19 and 20, and other passages in the New Testament teach. See, for instance, Galatians 6:1 (which also speaks of a believer’s paráptōma), and Matthew 18:15-20. Whoever initiates the contact, verse 16 commands that we are to come to wholehearted agreement about our character defects, and pray for each others’ defects, so that the defect (and the whole person) may be healed, in a sense analogous to the way a disease is “healed” (here, the word is iathēte, from iaomai, “I heal a disease”). This approach makes much better sense of the verse than treating it merely as a command to recite a laundry list of bad acts to a confessor.
So, James 5:16, in proper context, teaches that, as part of a larger collective activity and purpose of healing, we are to confess to each other the flaws that lead us into sin–wholeheartedly agreeing with with each other about our flaws–so that we may pray for each other toward the healing of those flaws, and the illnesses they cause.
NEXT IN CONFESSION SERIES: Confessing our Sins to God, 1 John 1:9 in context. (In preparation).
POSTSCRIPT: “Sin” Words: Lexical Definitions
Other New Testament Uses of Paráptōma
According to the Strong’s Concordance online, the word paráptōma is used only 21 times in the New Testament, and, in many of them, treating it as primarily referring to underlying faults produces a reading that is more consistent with other New Testament teachings than one that emphasizes discrete bad acts:
Matthew 6:14 & 15 (2 or 3 times, depending in the text of v. 15 used) and Mark 11:25 & 26 (2 times, though some texts omit v. 26): Debts, debtors and paráptōmata in the Lord’s Prayer and Jesus’ associated saying on mercy towards others’ weaknesses. (follow link),
Romans 4:25 (once): The Crediting of Righteousness to Abraham and the Question whether Jesus Died for Our Weaknesses or for for Our Discrete Sins Only.
Romans 5:15-20 (5 times, vv. 15, 16, 17, 18 ,20): Paráptōmata Contrasted to Grace, God’s Answer for Them, in Romans 5:15-20.
Romans 11: 11-12 (once each): Romans 11:5-12, a Context in Which Translating Paráptōmata as Discrete “Sins” Makes No Sense at All.
2 Corinthians 5:19: Reconciliation and Transformation of Life vs. Forgiveness of Discrete Sins–The Contrast Between Paráptōmata in 2 Corinthians 5:19 and Hamartias two verses later.
Galatians 6:1: Gently Seeking Restoration in the Church. What the person to be restored has been caught in is a paráptōma .
Ephesians 1:7: Part of God’s Plan to Reconcile All Things to Himself is to Reconcile Us to Himself by Sending Away Our Paraptōmatōn, Ephesians 1:3-11.
Ephesians 2:1 and 2:5: When Our Paráptōmata , Which Led to Wrong Behavior, Caused Our Death, God Made Us Alive Together With Christ, to Do the Good Works He Prepared out of a New Nature, Ephesians 2:1-10.
Colossians 2:13 (twice): God Showed Grace toward our Paráptōmata, and the Results of that Grace. Colossians 2:8-14.
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