According to the Scriptures

Damian Kyle: Consider the value of God's reputation, as well as your own, before you sue another Christian. The importance of just stopping, asking ourselves whether taking another Christian to court will leave our reputation as a Christian in any way diminished in the eyes of other Christians, in the eyes of the world, or whether it will diminish Christ's reputation if we do so. That is a very major consideration to make.

Guest (Male): When we're wronged by someone, or maybe our rights are violated, it's our tendency and desire and temptation to take it into the legal system. In certain instances, that may be the appropriate course of action. But let's say the person who did you wrong is a Christian. What then? Should Christians sue Christians? That's the question.

Today on According to the Scriptures, that question is raised by the Apostle Paul and the church at Corinth. We're going through 1 Corinthians, and here in chapter 6, another problem in the church at Corinth rises to the surface. Before you say, "I'll see you in court," consider what these verses have to say on the matter. Here's Damian Kyle.

Damian Kyle: Chapter 6, verse 1. Paul writes to the church at Corinth and to us as it applies. Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unrighteous and not before the saints? Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world will be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Do you not know that we shall judge angels? How much more things that pertain to this life?

If then you have judgments concerning things pertaining to this life, do you appoint those who are least esteemed by the church to judge? That is the world. I say this to your shame. Is it so that there is not a wise man among you, not even one, who will be able to judge between his brethren? But brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers?

Now, therefore, it is already an utter failure for you that you go to law against one another. Why do you not rather accept the wrong? Why do you not rather let yourself be cheated? No, you yourselves do wrong and cheat, and you do these things to your brethren. The church at Corinth, as we've seen and will see all the way through the letter, is the Apostle Paul dealing with one issue after another that he has to correct.

It is a corrective epistle, and he continues in that this evening. The church at Corinth was rapidly destroying its reputation and, with it, the reputation of Christ in the community there in Corinth. Their schisms and their fighting among one another were very well known in the community, as Paul addressed it earlier in the letter.

Their accommodation for sexual immorality within the church had become widely known within the city, as we saw last week, and then even beyond into the regions around. Their very broad-minded accommodation of sin within the church didn't build any bridges between the church and wicked Corinth at all. All that it accomplished was for the people of Corinth to lose respect for any kind of distinctiveness concerning the Christian church that should have been there and wasn't.

Non-Christians may not like Christians and may not like what we stand for, but they do expect us to be Christians. They expect us to live a different kind of life, and they notice when we don't. That talking about us being a living epistle, the only Bible many people will read. You say nobody reads your life, but just do something stupid as a Christian, much less sinful, and you'll realize people are watching you more closely than you think.

As Paul addresses the next problem within the church that is doing great damage to their reputation and also to their Christian witness, it was Christians taking other Christians within the church to court. At the core of all of these issues Paul is dealing with regarding Corinth is the church taking something from the world and the way the world deals with things and bringing it into the church.

In this endless progression, this now becomes something that they continue to do. They thought the way to build a bridge and make God, the God of the Bible, the Gospel, and the Word of God more acceptable to the population was to just have it be slightly more holy or noble than the pagan environment of Corinth itself. It has never worked and doesn't work today, though it's not tried any less today than it was then.

Ancient Greek culture was famous for the sheer number of lawsuits that were brought to court. We talk about being a very legal, sue-happy kind of culture, and we are. In the ancient world, they were the standard for that. They would just sue people right and left at the drop of a hat. It appears that that attitude toward suing one another and that characteristic of the Greeks continued in Corinth, even with it being under the Roman Empire.

The Roman government allowed Greece to operate its own justice system in addition to their own. This was a sue-happy culture. In that Greek way of dealing with courtrooms, don't think about our courtrooms where you've got a defense attorney, a prosecuting attorney, and a judge, and everything is very formal. In the ancient world in Greece, the cases would not be decided by judges.

They would be decided by Greek citizens who were called to be part of a jury. They would be paid a very nominal fee to be part of the jury, and most cases were decided in a day. Significantly for understanding this part of Paul's letter, depending on the type of case, the jurors deciding the case would number anywhere between 200 and 500 people. That is a big jury pool.

These court cases and suing one another in the ancient Greek culture became a cottage industry and a form of entertainment. They didn't have a thousand channels on their TV in those days, so this was something to go and see and do. If you have Christians suing one another, it isn't in some private courtroom. All of this dirty laundry is being brought out before the entire population.

If the jury numbered between 200 and 500, what was the size of the group that came to watch the trial? This was no way to represent Christ before the culture. It was a real problem, and Paul addresses it here. The Christians here in Corinth were suing each other and taking each other to court before unsaved judges in order to resolve their problems. We're talking about civil cases, not criminal law.

When one Christian commits a crime against another, that is a crime. That is no longer under your decision-making for whether it needs to be dealt with. A crime committed against a person is a crime committed against society, the government, and law and order. That needs to be dealt with by government as God has ordained it to have an orderly and civil civilization. It isn't criminal here; it's taking one another to court over civil issues involving money or some kind of wrongdoing.

Paul doesn't specify any criminal cases because he teaches elsewhere, in Romans chapter 13, that those come under the court system. A Christian can absolutely report a crime to the authorities. Paul strongly urged them to resolve their problems quietly and privately between one another. If they are unable to do that, then they should bring in the help of some other qualified Christians who could help them resolve the issue.

Problems do occur. The Apostle Paul isn't aghast that problems have occurred that would tempt one Christian to take another to court. He knows that Christians will sin against other Christians, and these things arise. Sometimes we just need help in solving those conflicts or getting justice in those situations. He said the help of other qualified Christians is on the table for that.

Paul is addressing lawsuits being filed by a Christian against another Christian. This does not mean that Christians cannot use the legal system or exercise our full rights as citizens and our legal rights. It is not prohibiting that at all or calling it a carnal thing. The Apostle Paul repeatedly exercised his legal rights as a Roman citizen in the course of his missionary journeys to defend himself and the reputation of Christ against persecution that was unjust.

Civil government is an institution of God. There is nothing wrong with Christians using it in order to exercise our rights as citizens. The practice of a Christian suing a Christian was clearly very scandalous to the Apostle Paul. Notice the strength of the language that he uses here. In verse 1, "Dare any of you?" That might have you put the letter down for a moment before you read on.

In verse 2, "Are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters?" Verse 5, "I say this to your shame." Finally, in verse 7, he calls it an utter failure. Despite the strength of the language that the Apostle Paul uses here, he stops short of absolutely prohibiting a fellow Christian taking another Christian to court under any circumstances. He doesn't say, "I command that this never be done and to do it is a sin."

Instead, he forces us to run any thought of suing another Christian through a very demanding grid that he lays out in this passage first. Knowing that there may be an exception to taking a brother to court, his instruction here should be the general principle for handling these issues. I'm hesitant, in the light of how I understand the passage, of saying you simply can't do it. Legal systems around the world are quite complex.

You have Christians who can be hiding behind a corporation, and yet it's a Christian company that has put this institution between them and other people. It all gets very convoluted. Paul is confident that as he lays this passage out, if we take any temptation to sue a fellow Christian, it will be exposed for what the motive is pretty thoroughly. The first layer of the grid we should run anything through is verse 1, "Dare any of you?"

He is talking about Christians there. It is a very strong statement meant to pull up anyone who is intending to sue another Christian as a matter of course. To do anything just because that is the way it is done in the world is to forget that we're not in the world anymore. We don't represent the world anymore; we represent Christ. The stakes are much higher in terms of our decision-making than ever they were.

We don't just sue somebody automatically without thinking because that's just what happens. We should carefully examine whether we should take the world's attitude toward this issue into our Christian life. When he says, "Are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters?" we are to examine our situation and determine whether it really requires legal action. Paul says, "Hold your horses, buckaroo. Is there some other way to take care of this that leaves your reputation intact?"

Suing isn't the only way for Christians to solve problems. We should ask whether we might be able to solve this on a personal level or with the help of qualified Christians. This point Paul makes would have smitten the pride and carnality of many in that church in Corinth. Corinth was very proud of its intellectualism and its learning. Many within the church carried this pride with them into their Christian life.

They brought human wisdom into trying to mix it with God's Word and the church. Paul says firmly that if you are as smart as you appear to think you are, take a look and see if you don't have the smarts and the wisdom to take care of this issue with another Christian. You can't just call yourself wise. Real wisdom, if you have it to half a degree of what you think you have, would allow you to readily take care of this.

Either start fixing these problems among Christians in the light of the wisdom that you possess, or stop saying that you are wise. He said further in verse 5, "I say this to your shame." In other words, I say this in order to shame you over the kind of things that you are suing one another over. It does no harm to ask ourselves, if we are tempted to sue another person, if we will one day be ashamed of what we are about to do.

How important it is for someone like the Apostle Paul to come alongside us and tell us that we may sue, but this is not going to age well. You are going to regret the day that you did this and took another Christian and the reputation of Christianity into a secular courtroom to solve something that could have been solved in another way or by simply dropping it. My counsel to you would be that in very short order, you will regret this.

You have a very high chance of being ashamed later. Paul calls it an utter failure in verse 7. He doesn't call it a sin. He uses the word utter to mean complete, and the Greek word he uses for failure means loss or defeat. It is an utter loss when you take another Christian to court in the way that you people are doing that. Just stop and ask ourselves whether taking another Christian to court will leave our reputation diminished in the eyes of other Christians, in the eyes of the world, or whether it will diminish Christ's reputation if we do so.

Guest (Male): We'll leave you to think that one over and be sure to join us tomorrow for the conclusion of this intriguing study in 1 Corinthians chapter 6 here on According to the Scriptures with Pastor Damian Kyle. If you're interested in a CD copy of today's message, you can reach out to us by calling 209-545-5530. You can also access our programs online at accordingtothescriptures.com or oneplace.com and look for us wherever you get your podcasts.

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