1 Corinthians 6:1-8

As we've mentioned several times, the book of 1 Corinthians is structured very differently from most of Paul's letters. The book is basically an itemized list of advice as Paul goes through the various issues and problems that existed within the church. Previously, Paul dealt with the problem of sectarianism and the problem of connivance. Here, in chapter 6, Paul moves to another issue that the church faced—the problem of litigation.

At Corinth, there was an ongoing issue of Christians bringing lawsuits against their fellow Christians. (Remember that when Paul here says 'brother,' he is referring to fellow-Christians.) William Barclay comments: “The Greeks were in fact famous, or notorious, for their love of going to law. Not unnaturally, certain of the Greeks had brought their litigious tendencies into the Christian Church; and Paul was shocked.” That is the issue of this passage—Christians bringing lawsuits against fellow Christians. (The issue of legal disputes between Christians and non-Christians does not enter into the discussion.) Verse 8 suggests that some of these lawsuits were frivolous, but that doesn't necessarily mean all of them were.

Paul takes issue with the idea of Christians taking their problems to be solved before non-Christians. In Greek society, judges were referred to by a term meaning the just or the righteous, as some court officials today are called 'justices'. But Paul refers to them as 'the unjust' or 'the unrighteous.' As people outside the church, as sinners, they were fundamentally on the wrong side of the law—of God's law—and so, however just they might be in the abstract, Paul saw them as inferior to the Christian who is morally renewed by God's law.

In thinking over this passage, I connected it to what we talked about in chapter 5—the problem of the church's witness to the world. Just as allowing sin within the church contaminates the church's image, so do such lawsuits. The church shouldn't bring their soiled clothes to pagan laundromats. 

However, after reading over this passage a few times, Paul doesn't actually address the issue of the church's witness. That should probably be inferred as the subtext, but it isn't what the text actually says. Rather Paul's focus is on the fact that the church ought to be able to judge itself. He states this idea in verse 1, saying that these matters should be settled before the saints instead of the unjust.

In verses 2-3, Paul states that Christians will judge the world and even angels. This seemingly refers to something in the future, to the Resurrection or the Millennium, if you believe there is a Millennium. The idea of Christians having some position of judge or ruler is found in a few other places in scripture. In Daniel 7:22 we have this prophecy: “Until the Ancient of days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the most High; and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom.” Jesus promised this to His disciples: “And I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me; that ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” (Luke 22:29-30) Speaking to the church at Thyatira, Jesus made this promise: “And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father.” (Revelation 2:26-27) 

None of these statements are very specific, but they do point to the Christian (or some from among the church) having some sort of authority over the world. As for this idea of Christians having authority over angels, I don't think there is any other reference to this. (It is ironic that Paul says “know ye not” regarding this since it is something we wouldn't know without this verse. However, it is probably something Paul had mentioned in person. Interestingly, the Corinthian letters have more references to angels than any of Paul's other letters.) 

However, there is logic here. The author of Hebrews makes this comment: “For unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak.” (Hebrews 2:5) God has not put the future world under the control of angels—and if you read the rest of Hebrews 2, it becomes clear that the author means that, instead of angels, the world is put under the authority of Jesus. But the point of Hebrews 2 is that Jesus became man—became lower than the angels—to exalt mankind. Therefore, though the writer of Hebrews doesn't make this connection, it does make sense that the Christian—those who are united to Christ—will have a position superior to the angels.

This is the hope of the church; this is the potentiality of the Christian—we have been promised not merely to survive this world but to be given some kind of authority in the future, sharing in the rule of Christ. And if that's true, then why can't the church manage its own affairs now? Earlier, Paul showed the benefits of salvation: “But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.” (1 Corinthians 1:30) As Christians, we have access to supernatural wisdom, to the wisdom of God; so why should we trust to sinners to solve our problems?

Verse 4 can be translated either as a command or as a question. In the KJV, it is put in the form of a command: Paul says that if they have these kinds of issues—the kinds of issues that would require a lawsuit—they should put it before those who are the least esteemed in the church. In other words, Paul is speaking ironically, saying it would be better to pick the least qualified Christian than to take these issues to the world. But the verse can also be translated as a question: with such issues, would you take them to those who have no esteem in the church? That is, will you take it to the world, to sinners, to those the church condemns?

In verse 5, Paul asks if they really had no one in the church wise enough to act as judge for their own problems. Corinth was a church that was proud of its own advancements, but if they couldn't even handle something like this, how good were they? How wise could they be if they couldn't produce one wise man to deal with these issues? This was a shame to the church.

So: this is Paul's argument—rather than taking their lawsuits to the judgment of the world, the church should deal with such problems internally. The reason Paul gives is that the church ought to have greater wisdom and authority than the world, though the subtext may be that it is a bad witness to bring these problems to outsiders. (All of this may connect back to the idea of sectarianism we discussed in the opening chapters; perhaps the competing parties were actually using lawsuits as a weapon against each other.)

In verse 7, Paul summarizes, saying that the very fact that any of this was an issue was a blot on the church. The NET Bible translates the beginning of the verse: “The fact that you have lawsuits among yourselves demonstrates that you have already been defeated.”

Then he goes on to make this statement: “Why do ye not rather take wrong? why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?” The idea seems to be that it would be better to suffer a loss than to seek redress such loss through litigation; it is better to be a victim than a plaintiff. Barnes summarizes the matter: “The apostle says that that was wholly wrong; that they ought by no means to go with their causes against their fellow Christians before heathen magistrates; that whoever had the right side of the question, and whatever might be the decision, the thing itself was unchristian and wrong; and that rather than dishonour religion by a trial or suit of this kind, they ought to be willing to take wrong, and to suffer any personal and private injustice. The argument is, that greater evil would be done to the cause of Christ by the fact of Christians appearing before a heathen tribunal with their disputes, than could result to either party from the injury done by the other.”

In verse 8, he goes further, saying: “Nay, ye do wrong, and defraud, and that your brethren.” This may mean that some of the suits were straight out wrong, or at least frivolous; that they were engaging in them purely for profit (financial or otherwise) and not from any sense of justice or self-defense. However, it may only mean that their actions in taking these matters to court were wrong and were injuring their brethren.

That is a fairly brief but complete exegesis of what Paul says in these 8 verses. And this is an interesting and controversial passage for this reason: I don't think I've ever heard any Christian espouse or practice what Paul seems to say here. The idea of an individual within the church acting as arbiter in place of a court decision is something very foreign to us—at least, to me.

I would suggest two reasons for this: first, we live in a society that has an extremely complex legal system—I would assume much more so than first-century Greece. Spiritual wisdom and discernment would not necessarily be much help in sorting out a genuine question of legality in the tangle of modern American laws. Perhaps, even at the time, the lawsuits Paul was discussing were regarding more trivial, petty matters and not serious questions of law. That would fit the context, but there is nothing to suggest it directly.

Second, we live in a society where the line between church and pagan is not as sharp and clear as it was in the first century. On the one hand, you have many more varieties of churches. Corinth had an issue with sectarianism, but it was still one church, whereas today, in any given town, you will have twenty different churches of different stripes. On the other side, though the legal and governmental systems of the world are not part of the church, you would find many individuals within it who make at least a profession of Christianity. It is an interesting question to consider where the church will be if the world continues to advance further away from Christianity.

In conclusion, I don't know precisely how to apply this passage to us today. I'm not even sure what to say the general principle is, except that the church should be wise enough to deal with its own problems. Perhaps you could even apply it by saying that Christians shouldn't be overly dependent on politicians to solve their problems. There is also the idea of verse 8--the idea that it is better to suffer wrong than to do it—and that just because you can do something doesn't necessarily mean that you should. This is something that will be important later.