SERIES: Christ is the Answer When the Church Is in Crisis
Suits that Don’t Fit
Introduction: What is justice, true justice? We don’t see a lot of it in our society, do we? I have a saying I often laid on my sons as they were growing up, but teenagers aren’t the only ones who need to hear it: “Life isn’t fair.” And the fact that we have one of the most advanced judicial systems in the world today doesn’t change that. I wonder how many people in the audience here this morning have been involved in a lawsuit (as a defendant, a plaintive, a witness, a juror, a lawyer, or even a judge). May I see your hands? Now, how many of the same people saw complete justice done?
My sermon title this morning is “Suits that Don’t Fit.” I’m not talking about wool or gabardine or double-knit. I’m talking about lawsuits, and lawsuits of a particular kind. Paul devotes the first paragraph of 1 Cor. 6 to explaining why such suits don’t fit in the church.
The Jewish people did not ordinarily use the public law courts at all. They had their own system of justice which was established during the wilderness wanderings 14 centuries before Christ, when Moses was advised by his father‑in‑law Jethro to set up a system by which disputes could be heard, and from which appeals could be made to Moses himself. Over the succeeding centuries this system was enlarged into a complex organization of priests, Levites and heads of families who had responsibilities over various kinds of disputed matters. The Sanhedrin later served as a kind of Supreme Court. The Jews actually believed that taking their disputes to public courts amounted to blasphemy against God’s law.
However, the church at Corinth was not primarily Jewish in background. It was made up mostly of Gentiles, who tended to bring their Greek lifestyle and thinking into the Church. And to a Greek, the law‑courts were anything but off limits. In fact, they constituted a large part of the entertainment business in an ancient Greek city.
The ancient Greek courthouse, you see, was not a private room with a small gallery such as we have today. In Athens (and Corinth was undoubtedly similar, being a sister city less than 50 miles away) a legal dispute was brought before a court known as The Forty. The Forty picked a public arbitrator, who had to be a citizen in his 60th year, to hear the case. If it couldn’t be settled satisfactorily there, it could be appealed to a jury court which consisted of 201 citizens (if the case involved less than a certain amount of money, perhaps $1000 today) and 401 citizens (if more than $1000). Some juries were as large as 6000 citizens over 30 years of age. It is plain to see that in a Greek city every man was more or less a lawyer (hard to imagine, isn’t it?) and spent a lot of time deciding or listening to cases.
So, it is not surprising that this issue would be addressed by the apostle in his letter to a church in crisis. Once again, the culture was influencing the Church instead of the Church influencing the culture.
Nor is it hard to see how this issue is relevant in our lawsuit‑happy society. Our national motto seems to have changed from “In God we trust” to “See you in court!” and our national pastime from baseball to litigation. Companies are being sued by stockholders and employees. Teachers are being sued by students. Coaches are being sued by their players. And parents are even being sued by their children.
Not surprisingly, Christians are caught up in this frenzy of lawsuits. In the past several years there have been numerous examples of faculty members suing the Christian college they work for; parishioners suing their pastor for counseling malpractice; pastors suing churches for discrimination, retirement benefits, and unused vacation pay; churches suing their pastor to get rid of him; churches suing denominations over who owns the building and property when a split occurs; and Christian music publishers suing churches for using copyrighted songs without permission or payment of royalties.
The Wittenberg Door, a not‑too‑reverent religious magazine that was popular in the 70’s, published a cartoon which showed a Christian vocalist standing beside a piano. With a microphone in hand and his accompanist ready to play, he introduces his song this way:
“I’d like to share a song with you that the Lord gave me a year ago …. and even though He did give it to me, any reproduction of this song in any form without my written consent will constitute infringement of the copyright law which grants me the right to sue your pants off…. Praise God!”
I’d show you the cartoon on the screen, but I’m afraid I’d get sued by the Wittenberg Door for not getting their permission.
When my older son was a senior in high school, he rode to the Christian school he attended with another kid who had wheels. But this boy’s parents requested a written statement from us to the effect that if there were an accident, we would not sue them for damages beyond their insurance coverage. I thought, “How ironic! A Christian family feels like they need to ask their pastor for a written guarantee that he won’t sue them before they can let his son ride to a Christian school in their car!”
Well, as we said, our subject today is relevant to where we live. In fact, isn’t the Bible amazing? There’s not a single issue I know of affecting our modern culture that is not addressed in this Book. The first thing today’s text tells us is that …
Disputes between believers will occur. (1)
In verse one, the word “if” in the NIV is not found in the Greek. The New Living Translation reflects the original better when it reads, “When you have something against another Christian, why do you file a lawsuit….” The Apostle assumes that disputes will arise. And he’s right.
Christians are sinners saved by grace. We are all under construction and there is no perfect church. If you find one, don’t join it because it will no longer be perfect. As long as there are at least two people in a church, sooner or later disagreements are inevitable. And that’s OK. Can you think how boring life would be if everyone agreed on everything? The Bible never advocates group‑think; it advocates unity. And unity results when differences are handled the right way and conflict is resolved constructively. Unity happens when the things we have in common are allowed to overshadow the ways in which we differ.
Given the fact that disagreements will occur, Paul expresses his real concern–how we deal with them. He proceeds to lay down the following principle:
Disputes between believers should be settled in the Church rather than before secular courts. (2‑7a)
In other words, we are to follow the Jewish model rather than the Greek model, and four good reasons are offered:
1. Believers deny their God‑given competence when they sue one another. (2‑6) Paul is of the opinion that believers are competent (in fact they are the only ones competent) to make judgments on disputes between themselves. Now let’s think about that for a moment. You don’t have to watch very many legal shows on TV shows (or real-life ones, for that matter) to realize that the outcome of a trial generally has less to do with the guilt or innocence of the parties and more to do the cleverness, oratory, and experience of the lawyers. We all know of cases where a skilled attorney got an obviously guilty client off the hook.
However, biblical justice does not focus upon cleverness or oratorical skill or emotional manipulation, but rather upon truth and the greater good of both parties. And almost any believer is competent to make judgments on facts, using biblical principles of fairness. If we have any doubt about that, Paul suggests that we consider the following: believers will someday judge the world. Verse two reads, “Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases?”
By the way, I remind you that a “saint” in Scripture is not someone who is dead and has been canonized by some church hierarchy. A saint is anyone who is a genuine Christian, set apart to God. We who are saints will, at the Second Coming of Christ, have the privilege of co‑regency with Him, helping Him rule and judge during His kingdom. Here’s how Daniel 7:27 puts it: “Then the sovereignty, power and greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be handed over to the saints, the people of the Most High. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers will worship and obey him.”
The argument here in 1 Cor. 6:2 is what logicians call an a fortiori argument, i.e., an argument from the greater to the lesser. Its logic goes like this: if the greater of two things is true, then surely the lesser is true. If we are going to sit in God’s Supreme Court, then surely we ought to be competent enough to decide the mundane kinds of disputes that occur among the members of the church.
But not only will we someday judge the world; even more astounding is the fact that …
In addition, we will judge angels. This also is an argument from the greater to the lesser, verse 3: “Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life!” It is not quite clear who these angels are or why we will be judging them. But it is clear that humans, who were created a little lower than the angels, will someday, by virtue of the redemption that is in Christ, have dominion over all creation, including the angelic world. The point is well made that anyone capable of judging angels should be able to judge the mundane issues that crop up in a local church.
Now Paul offers his conclusion. If we are going to judge the world, and if we are going to judge the angels…
Surely, then, even the least competent believer in the Church is better equipped to judge matters in the church than the most brilliant unbelieving Supreme Court Justice! Some of the supposedly most brilliant legal minds in the world have stated that abortion is not murder but simply the exercise of a woman’s right over her body, that homosexual marriages are natural, that they can’t tell whether or not something is obscene.[i] Since we have these kinds of moral midgets passing judgment in our court system, Paul says that it is a lot smarter to look within the body of Christ to settle our disputes.[ii]
Paul is evidently using sarcasm in verses 4 & 5. The Corinthians prided themselves on their wisdom. But if they’re so smart, can’t they find at least one person among them wise enough to decide disputes in the church? Really, any Christian should do, because we have the mind of Christ, we have (or should have) the motivation of love, the absence of revenge, and the desire to see even the guilty restored.
Furthermore, the ethical system the believer operates under is completely different from that employed in the secular judiciary. The Christian would not typically award punitive damages but only just compensation for the injury sustained. While in a secular court a judge might be more interested in enforcing the written provisions of a contract only, a believer would be concerned about the spirit of the contract as well, plus any verbal agreements, since a man’s word should be as good as a signed contract.
Now a second reason why disputes between believers should be settled in the Church rather than in secular courts is that …
2. Believers jeopardize the Church’s testimony and reputation when they sue one another. (1‑6) In verse 6 Paul expresses shock at the fact that “one brother goes to law against another–and this in front of unbelievers!” The clear reason for his alarm seems to be that the church is hanging out its dirty laundry for all to see.
A third reason why disputes should be settled in the church rather than in the courts is that …
3. Believers ignore the divine process for settling offenses when they sue one another. Matthew 18 offers believers a procedure for resolving disputes between them, so when God tells us not to go to court with one another, He doesn’t leave us without a remedy. We talked about this process when we discussed church discipline. At no time does God say, “sue him.”
The final reason Paul gives us as to why disputes between believers should be settled in the Church rather than before secular courts is that …
4. Believers always lose when they take another believer to court. Verse 7 tells us, “The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already.” It doesn’t really matter what the outcome of the lawsuit is. If you lose, you lose, and if you win, you lose. The former is easy to see, but how about the latter? One scholar put it this way:
“Think of what happens when a person goes to court and wins. Generally, he ends up resentful that he didn’t get more or that he didn’t get it sooner, or he is arrogant because he won. From start to finish the process is a grim, bitter, analytical battle of wills and wit, and even when it’s over, the offense is still there. There may be momentary mirth as the “spoils of victory” are divided, but while the head swells, the heart hardens. Unsmiling, untouching, and unyielding, each side walks away.” [iii]
Have you seen it on the People’s Court or with Judge Judy? The two sides are interviewed after the judgment is made, and rarely do they speak to or even look at one another. And those are just small claims! Multiply that by the seriousness of the issues and the size of the judgments sought in modern lawsuits, and you can understand the bitterness and hatred the courtroom produces.
We have examined the fact that disputes between believers will occur, but those disputes should be settled in the Church rather than before secular courts. Four good reasons have been offered as to why this should be done. But now in verse 7 the Apostle seems to back up one step, saying that actually, if believers were living the Spirit‑filled life, their disputes would never get to the point that suing was even contemplated.
Disputes between believers should never reach the stage of suing anyway. (7‑11)
A much‑quoted but little‑followed principle straight from the Sermon on the Mount is that
1. It is better to be cheated than to sue another believer. (7b; Matt. 5) Listen to Matt. 5:38ff.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ {39} But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. {40} And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. {41} If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. {42} Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.”
Paul seems to be referring directly to this teaching of Christ when in verse 7 of 1 Cor. 6 he asks, “Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated?” Well, I don’t know about you, but I can think of a number of good reasons for not letting someone cheat me. First, it’s not fair. Second, I worked hard for what he cheated me out of. Third, if I let him cheat me this time without resisting, he’ll just do it again when he realizes I’m a patsy. Fourth, if I let him cheat me, I’m letting him cheat my kids. And on and on we can go, giving good reasons why Jesus and Paul just aren’t very practical at this point.
But friends, without trying to discuss all the ramifications of this Law of Non‑resistance, I think we must at least see that if these passages teach nothing else, they teach that as a Christian my rights are not as important as my testimony. If I look after my testimony, the Bible hints that there is Someone who will look after my rights.
After all, God is either in control or He is not. He is either the owner of the cattle on a thousand hills or He is not. If He’s not, then we’re all wasting our time here today. And if He is, then I don’t really need to break my neck trying to protect my rights and my property and my reputation. God can, and will, take care of all that for me.
Frankly, I don’t know any truth harder for most of us to believe and live by than this one, but Abraham provides a beautiful example of how it works. He had a dispute with another believer and decided that it was better to be wronged than to demand his rights. Here’s the story in Genesis 13:5‑9:
Now Lot, who was moving about with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents. {6} But the land could not support them while they stayed together, for their possessions were so great that they were not able to stay together. {7} And quarreling arose between Abram’s herdsmen and the herdsmen of Lot. The Canaanites and Perizzites were also living in the land at that time. {8} So Abram said to Lot, “Let’s not have any quarreling between you and me, or between your herdsmen and mine, for we are brothers. {9} Is not the whole land before you? Let’s part company. If you go to the left, I’ll go to the right; if you go to the right, I’ll go to the left.”
Well, you know the story about how Lot chose the best land, the well‑watered plain of the Jordan, and Abram was left with the hill country of Canaan. Friends, I have been to that hill country several times, and it is just slightly more hospitable than the moon. Abraham could have complained that he was older and had rights to the best land, but he was willing to forgo his rights for the sake of unity. But that’s not the end of the story. Notice what God did about it. Verse 14:
The Lord said to Abram after Lot had parted from him, “Lift up your eyes from where you are and look north and south, east and west. All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted. Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you.”
Do you know anyone who is a descendant of Lot today? I doubt it. But the descendants of Abraham are everywhere. Did Abraham lose anything by giving up his rights? By no means; he actually gained a great deal. Is there any reason to believe God doesn’t still operate that way today? I know of none.
But there’s a further issue we need to look at.
Suing often leads to cheating someone else. Verse 8 puts it this way, “instead, (when you sue) you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers.” Say you sue someone. If he defends himself successfully, usually it still costs him thousands of dollars in court costs and lawyer fees. If he loses, it costs him not only the legal fees, but also the judgment. And that doesn’t even touch the matter of his reputation. How much more is that the case when two Christians go up against one another in a secular court?
Conclusion: I would like to suggest that you not wait until you feel you have suffered an injustice at the hands of another Christian before deciding how you’re going to respond. Decide now, on the basis of God’s Word, before you get emotionally involved, and then carry through with your determination, no matter what the consequences. Perhaps you are already in a dispute with another believer that is headed for, or already in court. What would God have you do about that in light of what the Word of God says here in 1 Cor. 6?
Let’s read our passage once more, this time from The Message:
And how dare you take each other to court! When you think you have been wronged, does it make any sense to go before a court that knows nothing of God’s ways instead of a family of Christians? The day is coming when the world is going to stand before a jury made up of Christians. If someday you are going to rule on the world’s fate, wouldn’t it be a good idea to practice on some of these smaller cases? Why, we’re even going to judge angels! So why not these everyday affairs? As these disagreements and wrongs surface, why would you ever entrust them to the judgment of people you don’t trust in any other way?
I say this as bluntly as I can to wake you up to the stupidity of what you’re doing. Is it possible that there isn’t one levelheaded person among you who can make fair decisions when disagreements and disputes come up? I don’t believe it. And here you are taking each other to court before people who don’t even believe in God! How can they render justice if they don’t believe in the God of justice?
These court cases are an ugly blot on your community. Wouldn’t it be far better to just take it, to let yourselves be wronged and forget it? All you’re doing is providing fuel for more wrong, more injustice, bringing more hurt to the people of your own spiritual family.
Friends, the Church is a family, and God desires that we settle our differences as a family, within the family.
Now I would like to wrap up this morning by anticipating some questions and trying to answer them.
1. Is it ever legitimate for a believer to use the secular court system? Yes. Paul himself appealed his conviction to Caesar. In 1 Cor. 6 Paul is dealing only with civil disputes between individuals, not criminal actions or disputes with insurance companies, or class-action suits, or other kinds of legal action. The only thing that is categorically ruled out is for a believer to sue another believer.
One time when it is permissible to sue, in my opinion, is when one is seeking protection from the state. Churches have filed class‑action suits for protection of religious freedom. Surgeon General C. Everett Coop, a committed evangelical, sued for the protection of severely handicapped children when their parents and physicians refused to allow life‑saving surgery. Right‑to‑life organizations have sued for the protection of the unborn. Civil rights organizations have sued for the protection of the rights of minorities. A Christian University sued for protection from what it saw as a vendetta by the IRS. Such legal steps must be weighed carefully and must be undertaken only with due consideration of the ultimate impact on the Church’s effectiveness, but I don’t think I Cor. 6 rules them out.
Furthermore, when a crime has been committed, a Christian may be obligated to turn a fellow‑Christian in and even to testify against him in court. The Church does not have jurisdiction over criminal justice–that belongs to the State, according to Romans 13.
2. What about “friendly lawsuits” to gain insurance proceeds? Suppose a Christian family has a swimming pool and, God forbid, at a youth group party a teen drowns. The family who owns the pool has a $1 million insurance policy, but the insurance company won’t pay unless they are sued. It is possible to file a “friendly suit,” in which the grieving family agrees to file against the insurance company, but not seek damages from the family that owned the pool. Technically that family is the defendant, but in fact, the insurance company is the defendant. I do not think this is forbidden in our passage.
Actually, the only lawsuit I’ve ever been involved in was of this variety. I was in a very bad accident, but the insurance company would not even pay my extensive medical bills unless I signed a full release. We were not prepared to do that because some medical problems were ongoing. To complicate the situation, I was told that the party responsible for the accident was a believer. So, I had my lawyer write her a letter stating that while we felt obligated to sue the insurance company, we would not seek any of her personal assets. Since she only had $100,000 in insurance, the lawyer warned me that such an action would put serious limitations on any recovery, but we insisted, and the letter was sent. Fortunately, the suit didn’t go to trial as the insurance company settled out of court.
3. What if the one you are considering suing claims to be a Christian but gives no evidence of actually being one? Are you then exempt from the restriction of 1 Cor. 6? The point of our passage is not that it’s permissible to sue anyone and everyone except a Christian; but rather that suing in general is a bad way to handle disputes and it is not OK to sue a Christian in an attempt to enforce our rights. Rather than looking for loopholes, we ought to be looking for creative ways to solve disputes with anyone and everyone, like arbitration.
But to go ahead and attempt an answer to the question I asked, I would say that the claim to be a Christian in this case is almost as important as the fact. If one of the key reasons for not suing another believer is that the world is watching, we must admit that the world is hardly adept at distinguishing between true believers and those who are only professing believers. I would say that if someone is identified with a believing Church, whether or not he is a believer himself, we should avoid taking that person to court.
4. Practically, how does in‑church arbitration work? Lynn Buzzard is a Christian attorney (tough name for a lawyer to wear!). He is the former director and founder of the Christian Legal Society, and he wrote a book entitled, Tell It to the Church, in which he spells out the procedures for establishing an arbitration board in a local church or in a denomination. In many cases the Elders can serve as the arbiters, but Buzzard recommends that in some cases a neutral church might work better, with the arbiters consisting of believers who do not know the contestants in the case. Believing attorneys may represent their respective Christian clients, or they may represent themselves.
The session is introduced with Scripture and prayer, both parties present their case (without the typical badgering of witnesses and grandstanding to the jury), and questions are asked by the arbiters. The final decision rests with the arbiters, and their decision is binding by advance agreement of both parties.
Peacemakers Ministries is another great resource for Christian conciliation, mediation, and dispute resolution. It will help believers resolve disputes within the church in a just and godly manner.
One final word. Lawyers tend to get a bad rap in our society, and I enjoy a good lawyer joke as much as the next guy. But there are a number of Christian lawyers who encourage believers to look into alternatives to litigation. One Christian attorney I know, who handles a lot of divorce cases, has a standing rule that he won’t take a case unless the pastors involved are aware of the issues and have signed off on it. I want to honor those attorneys today. I also want to honor those of you who have resolved disputes in a godly manner in accord with 1 Cor. 6.
Speaking of lawyers, when you stand before God, you’re going to need a really good attorney. It’s a given that the one who serves as his own attorney has a fool for a client. But there is an attorney, an advocate who is able and willing to represent you before the Father. Rev. 12:10 reads, “Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: ‘Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. They overcame him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.’”
The accuser is Satan; the one who overcomes him is Jesus Christ. Commit your heart and life to Him today, and your destiny will be secure.
DATE: January 14, 2001
Tags:
Lawsuits
Arbitration
[i] Note added in 2023: Last year Supreme Court Justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson, stated in her nomination hearing that she couldn’t even define “a woman.”
[ii]. Concept borrowed from Bob Laube in a sermon entitled The People’s Court.
[iii]. Documentation for this quotation has been misplaced