1 Corinthians 6:1-11 - Lawsuits

INTRODUCTION

Open your Bibles with me this morning to the 6th chapter of 1 Corinthians.

I will read the first 11 verses of the chapter.

[READ 1 CORINTHIANS 6:1-11]

If you aren’t familiar with the subjects of the letters to the Corinthian church, let me summarize:

The Corinthian church was troubled.

Not troubled as in “We are constantly persecuted from outside”,

But troubled as in “This is a deeply flawed congregation who creates their own problems.”

Now, don’t get me wrong: there are many churches in our day that would give the Corinthian church a run for its money in troubled-ness.

I love this fellowship here and all the members of it, but I worry what the subjects of a letter from the apostle Paul might say to us.

What blind spots or cultural sins do we tolerate or overlook?

Where do we fail as a church to live up to the plain teaching of Scripture, which we have in greater measure than these Greek believers had?

We live in a time when good and true churches of our Lord Jesus Christ are harder and harder to find,

And examples of good and godly believers, particularly those unstained by the world, are rare.

And so we find we cannot find a true measure of our church’s faithfulness by measuring ourselves against other churches -

We must come to the Scriptures and measure ourselves by the unfailing and unyielding light of its judgments.

The Corinthian church had problems, though:

Disputes with each other,

Grave sins that would embarrass a pagan,

Prideful talk and ungodly competition between brothers,

And sexual immorality that approaches our own times.

And in the passage we are looking at today, we find a specific case that illustrates much that was wrong in this church:

One brother took another brother to court.

One brother sued another.

Proverbs 18:19 describes the outcome of such an egregious act: “A brother offended is more unyielding than a strong city, and quarreling is like the bars of a castle.”

Jesus spent the final recorded prayer in the gospels praying for one thing: our unity.

John 17:20–21 ““I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”

Jesus was praying for the Corinthian church - and He was praying for ours.

And nothing destroys unity faster than an unresolved dispute.

This isn’t a secondary issue - it gets to the core of our worship together:

Matthew 5:23–24 “So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”

How many examples in the Old Testament do we have of the disastrous results of brothers who are at odds?

Cain and Abel?

Jacob and Esau?

Joseph and his brothers?

Amnon and Absalom?

Job and his friends?

That’s why our Lord commands us to settle disputes quickly between brothers.

Even if the settlement COSTS you something, we find clear commands from our Lord:

Matthew 5:40 “And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.”

Perhaps you are thinking to yourself: but pastor, that’s not just between brothers.

You don’t say...perhaps we’ll need to come back to that fact later.

But let’s go first to the case that’s here in our passage today:

One believer, a member of the Corinthian church, has taken another believing member of this church to court.

There is no indication either is not a believer - Paul calls them brothers.

Perhaps the bitterest irony is that one brother had taken another before the very tribunal Paul himself had been dragged before:

Acts 18:12–16 “But when Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews made a united attack on Paul and brought him before the tribunal, saying, “This man is persuading people to worship God contrary to the law.” But when Paul was about to open his mouth, Gallio said to the Jews, “If it were a matter of wrongdoing or vicious crime, O Jews, I would have reason to accept your complaint. But since it is a matter of questions about words and names and your own law, see to it yourselves. I refuse to be a judge of these things.” And he drove them from the tribunal.”

The same place of judgment that the Jews might use AGAINST the church was the same place one brother had taken another for his idea of justice.

One basic question I think we should ask is how a dispute between brothers got BIG enough to take to court at all.

Was the church unaware of the problem between these two brothers?

I find that unlikely since Paul’s first and sternest correction is for the church as a whole.

1 Corinthians 6:4 “So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church?”

1 Corinthians 6:5 “I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers,”

1 Corinthians 6:6 “but brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers?”

1 Corinthians 6:7a “To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you.”

These statements aren’t primarily for the plaintiff or the defendant - they are Paul’s horror of the situation expressed to the entire church.

How could you let these brothers live without finding a way to make peace between them?

How could you look on and watch while your church was being split between these two opposing sides?

Verse 5 is especially direct: I say this to your shame!

This isn’t one of those “You should be ashamed of yourself” corrections so many of us learned to shrug off as children or disobedient teens.

This is a statement of the abject shamefulness of the church’s unconcern that these brothers were fighting at all.

How DARE YOU?

Really - how DARE you?

That word, “Dare” is the first word in Greek in the first verse of this paragraph:

DARE you to go before the ungodly instead of the saints...?

Do you SERIOUSLY dare to seek justice in the world?

Do you SERIOUSLY think you will get a more just outcome from a judge or jury that will use only man’s law with no regard for God’s law and gospel?

Do you SERIOUSLY think that if one of these men prevails in court, that everything will be good between them - ever again?

The courts of this world, particularly in civil matters, are designed to create winners and losers - not to reunite brothers who have cultivated a disagreement.

Notice Paul never deals AT ALL with the particulars of the case.

What the one suing thought the other man had defrauded him of.

It didn’t matter:

The moment they took their dispute to the secular courts, both of them lost.

And the church lost as well.

How can they, the saints of God, who will sit beside the great King of kings when He executes His judgment on the earth, how can they sit by and trust themselves to these petty, earthly magistrates to give them justice.

This very week, I saw where the US Supreme Court refused to hear a case brought against one of the Southern Baptist entities by a former employee.

We are not members of the SBC, so we have no dog in this fight directly.

I was chilled by his arguments, and the arguments of some of the Baptist Press, that in refusing to hear the case, all church people had LOST some rights.

REALLY? We need the US Supreme Court to weigh in on a dispute that should be between brothers?

Fortunately, the Supreme Court made the wise decision to leave intact the action of the lower court to throw out the case - much as Gallio did in Corinth in Paul’s case.

I cannot imagine a more grave threat than inviting the government to step in to the governance of the church - for any reason.

What fellowship has the warped idea of justice in this world have with the true justice of God as delivered through His Holy Spirit?

Can the church herself not sort out these trivial matters?

Make no mistake - they are trivial - no matter what the dispute was between these men.

The only thing a secular court can judge are the things of this world - things that are, by definition, passing away.

At the end of verse 2, Paul calls these “trivial things”; at the end of verse 3, he defines them as “things pertaining to this life.”

What things pertaining to the things of this life are anything BUT trivial in comparison to the exceeding value of your brother?

Now after Paul addresses the church as a whole, he does make a statement to each of the brothers in this case:

To the plaintiff, the one who brought the suit, he asks:

1 Corinthians 6:7 “Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded?”

Why, rather than alienating your brother and bringing disrepute upon the church of Jesus Christ, why did you not just suffer wrong?

Did the man take something, anything from you that will matter in the light of eternity?

Did he take some gold or silver, or something that could be sold for such?

What kind of silver or gold is there that isn’t prone to theft?

Did he take land?

To whom did it belong before you possessed it, and who would have owned it after you pass from this earth?

Did he defame you, slander you in some way?

Which court can restore to you your reputation? It is God who vindicates.

Psalm 43:1 “Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people, from the deceitful and unjust man deliver me!”

If he spoke the truth about you, repent.

If he spoke a lie about you, maintain your integrity and love, and prove his accusations false.

1 Peter 3:15–16 “but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.”

There is nothing that can be restored by a civil court that is not something of this world.

And the damage to the church of taking your case before the unjust courts of this world goes far beyond just the reputation of the church;

It rips the congregation apart, sowing the seeds of future conflict and division through this ungodly path.

So is the Scripture saying we should NEVER take a brother to court in a civil matter?

YES.

The church of Jesus Christ is sufficient to judge between brothers and come to an arrangement that doesn’t just make a winner and a loser;

The church will be concerned for the relationship between the two even more than the bauble at issue.

Paul also corrects the defendant:

1 Corinthians 6:8 “But you yourselves wrong and defraud—even your own brothers!”

This is a condemnation of the one who is accused.

Why did he not return or relinquish the bauble when he knew it was in dispute?

Why didn’t he recognize his brother had something against him?

Why didn’t he seek peace with his brother rather than press his right to the item in dispute?

What follows in the next verses is a listing of things that defraud others and bring just condemnation on the one who does them:

1 Corinthians 6:9–10 “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”

Each of these sins robs someone else of something.

I’ll not take the time to go through the list, but I know you are all wise enough to see the harm to others each of these sins cause.

Each one of these diminishes another person, and proves that the one who practices them has no love for his brother.

So for the one who stands accused, what better can he do to prove the accusation wrong than to return the disputed item?

What better can he do to restore the fellowship with his brother than to open his hand and relinquish it back to his brother?

This is a Difficult Passage in our series because we aren’t wired that way - not trained that way from birth.

We are taught to fight for our rights, even when there is no real threat to them.

We are taught to defend with violence those things we have.

We are taught to hold tightly to our possessions, considering them God-given blessings that should accumulate to us.

We have trouble speaking the truth with Job: “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord.”

How many of us have returned slander for slander, even when we said it was all in good fun?

How many of us have gotten angry over the most trivial slights so our fellowship with a brother or sister is harmed?

How many of us would justify even deadly violence in defense of our property?

Not our life or the lives of others - our STUFF?

You are JESUS’S people!

You are people He called out from the same sins we might now condemn others for practicing.

1 Corinthians 6:11 “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”

You are people He has called out and saved from this world to be concerned for the things of eternity.

And the peaceful fellowship of the church is something that has the full ring of eternity as it sounds.

Just a few final thoughts:

1. I have called the courts in this “unjust”, not because they will necessarily return an unjust verdict.

That would just be cynical.

I call them this because Paul does - and that is in contrast to the justice to be derived from a loving church looking for the good of both brothers in dispute.

Why would a Christian EVER go beyond the church when it is seeking this?

Does either party think they will get a better outcome from the civil magistrate?

The civil magistrate has technicalities and conflicting laws that must be teased out so the precedent is solid.

The church doesn’t operate under this handicap.

We may decide, in any case we see and at any time before the relationship is fully broken, and our decision will, with the Spirit’s guidance, be better for all concerned, even the church.

2. This does not apply to criminal acts. If we discover harm to someone that is criminal, we will and should report this to the civil government.

That is THEIR circle - they are given the sword by God for just that thing.

3. We should be circumspect in our dealings with unbelievers who may try to defraud us.

Certainly, you are fully entitled to protect yourself from being ripped off.

But you will have times in your life where you do have a choice whether to enforce your “rights” against an unbeliever.

A good question to ask is whether you would give the value of what they might take if it would purchase faith for them.

If by giving that as a willing gift, they might come to Christ?

If you are willing to give it as alms or as a gift, why would you let it bother you that they just took it?

If that bauble you would so easily part with causes you distress, you are holding too tightly to your possessions or your pride.