How Do I Talk to Someone About Their Sin?

Jesus was always navigating this very question, but he doesn’t give us any formulas. Instead, we can discern certain principles that seem to guide his decisions.

1. We always assume a posture of humility toward others. As Jesus says, we are to see our sin as a log and other’s as a dust speck (Matthew 7:1-5).
2. When Jesus was beginning to build a relationship with people, he hung out with them at dinner parties, he healed them, he delivered them from demonic forces, etc., but he never seemed to bring up people’s sins. It seems that Jesus only brought up issues of personal sin when someone wanted to move from just hanging out with Jesus to “following Jesus” as an intentional disciple (e.g., the rich young ruler; see Matthew 19:16-22 ). The only other group of people that he confronted about personal sins were the Jewish religious leaders (e.g., Matthew 23), because they were claiming the position of the “seat of Moses” – i.e., the position of the religious leaders over God’s people. Other than that, Jesus waits until someone says they want to follow his way of life. At that point, he is honest about what that way of life looks like and what that will mean for them in terms of repentance and life-change (e.g., Luke 14:25-33 ).
3. Once someone commits to follow Jesus, they have chosen to enter the family of God. And part of being in God’s family is being in a mutual discipleship relationship with a small group of Jesus followers, which includes inviting them to speak into one’s life about matters of character development, sin, etc. Once we are invited in, then we have a legitimate basis from which to humbly share about what we see in their lives from the perspective of Scripture, etc.
4. Even once someone chooses to become a disciple, however, Jesus doesn’t have a formula for addressing sin. Rather, his approach is very person-specific, based on Jesus’ discernment of his Father’s voice. In John 5:19 Jesus says: “Truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.” This applies to everything Jesus did including when and how he spoke about sin. As his followers, we need to follow the same principle of discernment. God alone knows what he wants to deal with at a certain point in someone’s life, so we must stay in a posture of prayer, listening for God’s voice as to what we are to bring up and when and how we are to do it. This requires learning how to humbly and lovingly hear God on behalf of others who we are in relationship with.

Now, all of this so far involves speaking into the lives of specific people. When it comes to structural, social-cultural sins, Jesus treats them differently. For example, Jesus frequently speaks out about systemic sins that plagued first-century Judaism such as oppression of the poor, etc. Even here, however, we will want to listen to God’s guiding voice in what to say and how to say it.

Recommended Resources

• Hearing God by Dallas Willard