Holy discourse seeks to apply the blood-bought benefits of Christ to the deepest recesses of the human heart. Holy discourse fans zeal for Christ, strengthens understanding of Scripture, reinforces doctrinal orthodoxy, unearths destructive patterns of thought, addresses beleaguered souls, nurtures preserving prayer, bridles gossip and backbiting, deepens compassion for others, and develops skills of soul care.

When a history of secret sin is suddenly revealed in the life of a Christian leader, the results are catastrophic. Families and victims are devastated, ministries are destroyed, and the reputation of the Lord Jesus is maligned. Unfortunately, what we see in a public failure is often repeated dozens of times in situations much closer to home. As we try to make sense of a ministry collapse, we’re prone to ask how it is possible that accountability was avoided for so long. Why does accountability seem, so often, to fail?

For one, we simply neglect to ask others about the condition of their spiritual lives. We assume that close friends or spiritual leaders are walking faithfully with Christ — so we don’t ask. Paradoxically, the more “successful” or seemingly mature a Christian is, the less often he may be engaged in true spiritual conversation.

But the main reason accountability fails is because of its separation from robust spiritual care. Being “accountable” has become equivalent to meeting regularly or scoring well on a checklist of questions (often focused, at least for men, on sexual purity). Gnawing doubts about the goodness of Christ, deep anxieties about broken relationships, or a faith-threatening worldliness are unlikely to be unearthed with such a narrow focus. If our “accountability group” isn’t addressing our needs and vulnerabilities, while also giving us a false sense of security and spiritual health, maybe we should just get rid of our accountability group.

Deeper than additional protocols, accountability groups, or purity ministries, our church needs a recovery of the spiritual discipline of “holy discourse” (Joanna Jung, The Lost Discipline of Conversation) — a kind of meaningful, spiritual conversation that runs through all our relationships in the church.

Purpose of Holy Discourse

The Puritans considered holy discourse alongside meditation, silence and solitude, prayer, and fasting as a basic discipline in the Christian life. They pointed to Malachi 3:13–17 as biblical rationale for spiritual conversations — what they often called the practice of “conferencing.”

Malachi relays how some of God’s people had grown disillusioned with walking in faithfulness before the Lord. They complained, “What is the profit of our keeping his charge or of walking as in mourning before the Lord of hosts? . . . Evildoers not only prosper but they put God to the test and they escape” (Malachi 3:14–15). The response of the faithful, however, brought God’s blessing:

Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another. The Lord paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the Lord and esteemed his name. “They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him.” (Malachi 3:16–17)

The Puritans inferred that this conversation was a regular practice outside of the weekly service of worship (the KJV translates verse 16, “then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another”). Rather than being a time of formal instruction from the priesthood, it was a time when ordinary saints conferred with one another, edifying and encouraging one another to walk in God’s ordinances.

The Puritans argued that Hebrews 3:13 and 10:25 also taught spiritual conversation as a God-appointed means for believers to mutually guard one another’s faith. In so doing, holy discourse functioned as a robust mechanism for accountability in the Christian life.

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