When one of you has a dispute with another believer, how dare you file a lawsuit and ask a secular court to decide the matter instead of taking it to other believers! Don’t you realize that someday we believers will judge the world? And since you are going to judge the world, can’t you decide even these little things among yourselves? Don’t you realize that we will judge angels? So you should surely be able to resolve ordinary disputes in this life. If you have legal disputes about such matters, why go to outside judges who are not respected by the church? I am saying this to shame you. Isn’t there anyone in all the church who is wise enough to decide these issues? But instead, one believer sues another—right in front of unbelievers! Even to have such lawsuits with one another is a defeat for you. Why not just accept the injustice and leave it at that? Why not let yourselves be cheated? Instead, you yourselves are the ones who do wrong and cheat even your fellow believers.
- 1 Corinthians 6:1-8
Paul just rebuked the believers in the Corinthian church for letting the sexual sin of incest not only exist in their church but being boastful about it in the last section. Now, he continues his lecture to them by getting into how to handle legal disputes among them.
There are a few important things to note before digging into the details of this passage. Paul makes it clear up front in verse 1 that what he’s saying only applies to disputes among believers. This does not apply when an unbeliever is involved in the dispute. Additionally, this section only refers to non-criminal disputes. He implies in Romans 13:3-4 that criminal cases should be handled by the government. The legal matters referred to in this section are property or civil disputes.
However, by using the phrasing “how dare you,” Paul is strongly urging believers to take their legal matters before Christians who can help them, rather than commanding them. So there is still a door left open for Christians to take cases to the secular courts in some situations. Roman law of Paul’s day allowed Jews to use their own authorities to settle property disputes. It’s likely that this same line of thought would apply to Christians, as they weren’t yet that far removed from the Jewish traditions at this point. Paul was also a Roman citizen, so he would have been able to use the Roman courts as well for any legal matters.
Today, we have a very different system than the Jews and early Christians in the first century. There are no specific religious courts in our society that Christians can use to handle our legal matters. Paul’s concern for the early believers at Corinth was how this would affect things at the second coming of Christ (verse 2). If believers can’t even handle small civil matters among themselves, how will we with Christ judge the world one day? We have become co-heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17), so we will reign and judge the world with Him when the end of times comes. So if they can’t even handle these petty little earthly matters, how will they judge on that day?
Paul emphasizes his case even more in verse 3, where he points out that Christians will judge angels. However, Paul does not give us any details of what exactly that means. Perhaps it means that Christians will have a part in judging the devil and his fellow fallen angels. Or, this may mean that Christians will rule over the heavenly angels with Christ someday, as we are co-heirs with Him.
Scholars disagree on the tone of what Paul says in verse 4, whether he is being sarcastic or as a rhetorical question. Either way, an “outside” judge, meaning an unbeliever, would have a different worldview than those who have faith in Christ. They will likely see matters in a different light, and they would not necessarily be looking at matters through a perspective of God’s love and justice as a believer would.
In verses 5-6, Paul lets them know that they should be ashamed of themselves for not being able to handle these matters within the church. There should be some believer among them who is wise enough to handle this! That would be much better than having Christian brothers fighting with each other in front of the secular courts over a small matter that probably isn’t important in the grand scheme of things. That gives the believers a bad name and does not represent the name of Jesus well to those who do not yet have faith in Him.
Paul does recognize in verse 7 that legal matters may need to be handled at times, but the fact that they are having these disputes among fellow believers shows their spiritual immaturity. They are not living out the love that God has shown them when they cause injustices to happen among their fellow believers. He points out in verse 8 that some of those believers are the ones who are causing these injustices and the need for legal authorities to step in. Their love for their fellow believers should be strong enough that they would be willing to suffer some wrongs against them for the sake of unity in the church.
How do we apply this passage to our modern world? Does this mean that believers should never take another believer to court for any reason? Depending on the situation, that answer could be yes. Jesus gave us a process for handling disputes among believers in Matthew 18:15-20. If all of us truly followed that and did our best to love one another with the love of Christ, then there would be little need for believers to take one another to court.
However, the problem is that we don’t follow that procedure from Jesus and we don’t always love one another as we should. We are spiritually immature and we are weak when tempted by the ways of this world. But as believers in Christ, we should be different than the nonbelievers in our society. We should hold ourselves and each other to a higher standard – the standard of being obedient to God in all things out of love and honor for Him.
We do have a court process that we can use when dealing with unbelievers, and I believe that also applies to those who may be Christians in name only who are not truly striving to live out their faith. But we should be careful to practice spiritual maturity and follow the instructions of Jesus before immediately turning to the secular ways of this world to handle matters among our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, just as Paul encourages the Corinthians to do.
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