Exposing evil.

Once you were darkness; now, in the Lord, you’re light.

Walk like children of light. Light’s fruit is in every good, right, true thing.

Figure out what the Lord finds pleasing, and have nothing to do with fruitless works of darkness.

Instead, expose the secrets done among them, shameful as they are to talk about.

They’ll all be exposed when the light shines, for the light makes everything visible.

Hence it’s said, "Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead. Christ will enlighten you."

—Paul,

In the Textus Receptus, the Greek New Testament used to translate the King James Version, verse 9 doesn’t have “light’s fruit,” but o karpós tu Pnéfmatos/“the Spirit’s fruit.” So, KJV fans would recognize goodness, righteousness, and truth as three more fruits of the Spirit—and really, the rest of us should also recognize them as such.

After all, if we’re walking in the Light, we should produce fruit with those attributes to them: They’re good, they’re right-minded, and they’re true. They’re not evil; they’re not wrong-headed or unrighteous; they’re not falsehoods or half-truths or lies.

Sad to say, a lot of Christians are willing to produce things that aren’t so good, aren’t so obedient to God, and aren’t so truthful. We’re humans; we sin, as humans do. Problem is, when we sin, we don’t always confess our sins and repent: We hide our sins—sometimes our own sins, sometimes our fellow sinners’ sins—and sorta repent, in that we resolve not to make the same mistake twice, and give ourselves more to cover up. But the very fact we’re covering stuff up means we’re not living in Light, where the fruit grows. We’ve still in the dark.

Hiding sin is a form of sin.

Too many Christians hide our sins. We don’t admit, “I’ve done that too,” or “I’ve done worse,” or “I still struggle with that.” We figure those facts are nobody’s business. We may not necessarily lie about the fact we’re still sinners—when we’re point-blank asked, we’ll tell the truth. But we’ll never volunteer this information. We figure it’s none of their business: “My sins are between me and God, and he’s forgiven me, and that’s that.”

When we’re not quick to admit our failings, by default we’re giving the impression we have no such failings. If I’m in a bible study group, and we’re talking about envy, and I don’t come right out and admit, “Yeah, I’ve been jealous”—I don’t have to give details if they won’t help the discussion any—it implies, and is often meant to imply, that I don’t suffer from this particular problem. Even though my life might revolve around this particular problem: My entire business career might be based on trying to achieve more recognition than my co-workers, and squashing them so I can get ahead. But you’ll never know it if I never talk about it—or you might be a co-worker, know all about it, and think, “What an utter hypocrite: He’s the most envious person I know.”

When we won’t share the truth, it means an absence of truth. It’s a sin of omission. We’re not honest about who we are; we’re letting other people assume the best of us. Sometimes we even posture in such a way that gets them to assume the best of us: We’re quick to say, “Envy is just horrible; envious people are a real problem,” and condemn the behavior, while never letting on how we practice the very same behavior. The reason pagans call us Christians hypocrites is because they know we practice the very sins we condemn. If we admitted we did so, and condemned our own sins at the same time, they might still call us hypocrites (they use the word wrong, and think it means inconsistent, not deceptive) but they’d be wrong. Our honesty and humility would stand out in a way they’re not used to—and in a way people find refreshing, for it’s so rare.

Pagans are right to rebuke us for this inconsistency. We should be quick to admit our flaws. We need to let everybody know—Christians and pagans alike—it’s normal to have flaws. Not okay; we’re not justifying it by showing how widespread it is. We’re only showing it’s normal. You think you’re the worst sinner in your church? You’re hardly the worst sinner. Paul was known to claim he was the worst sinner. After all, he used to persecute Christians. But thanks to God, there he was, a leader in Christ’s church. And thanks to God, here we are: Sinners saved by grace.

Exposing sin.

Jesus spelled out a procedure to follow when we catch fellow Christians in sin. Much as we might vengefully want to embarrass fellow Christians when they’re acting like enemies, we’re to love our enemies. Restore a right relationship with them. Don’t try to destroy them, much as you may want to.

Vengeance wasn’t Paul’s intent at all when he wrote about exposing their secret deeds. He called them shameful to talk about. It’s embarrassing to have fellow Christians who harm the cause of Christ through their misbehavior. We get enough criticism from skeptics and pagans, without meriting their criticism because of the dumb stuff we do.

But when we’re not plotting revenge, our first instinct is often to hide their bad behavior. Especially when it’s really bad, like a treasurer embezzling the church’s money, or a youth pastor having sex with one of the teenagers. We realize once the word gets out, it’ll create a scandal. It’ll open us up to ridicule, shake people’s faith, and so forth. We might falsely believe we can mitigate the disaster by keeping secrets, or at least carefully controlling what gets out. We’ll look for any excuse to avoid transparency.

But God doesn’t do darkness: God doesn’t keep secrets. This stuff has to be brought out into the open. And if we won’t expose it, God will. That’s the point behind the Ananias and Sapphira story. God will not be a co-conspirator in our attempts to hide sin. He’ll tell on us.

Sometimes he’ll even do it Old Testament style: God will let our enemies tell on us, and drag our secrets out of the inner room and into the street. Why do you think so many church scandals are quick to make it into the press? Because these churches refused to deal with it, and let it grow to the point it became newsworthy—and that was when God chose to let the story break. Every time this happens, ignorant Christians always bellyache about how “the devil is tearing down the church through the media,” and I call ’em ignorant because it’s never the devil who exposes sin: The very last thing the devil wants is have the light shone on its works. God exposes sin. It’s not the devil ripping down your church. It’s God, trying to get the cancer out of it, and unfortunately chemotherapy sucks.

And he expects us to expose evil, right along with him. If you catch it among you, don’t hide it. Don’t think, “Oh, but the scandal!” Don’t let anyone tell you, “Keep this under wraps for now; we’ll deal with it in due time.” Follow Jesus’s procedure: Talk to the sinner; get other people involved when they’re unrepentant; escalate things further when they’re still unrepentant. And if they broke the law, unless you want to be an accessory to their crime, always get the cops involved.

Becauses if you don’t expose evil, you’re part of the evil.