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. Don’t you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people—none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God. Some of you were once like that. But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. 1 Corinthians 6:1-11
This sounds
so much like my mother’s words as she would send me off to school, or to play
with a friend, or on my first date: Russell,
remember who you are, and Whose you are.
Paul is not
exactly reading the riot act to the church, but it’s
close. He reminds them that acting like
the rest of the unbelieving world destroys the witness of their life in Christ.
I can hear
the unwritten thoughts rolling around in Paul’s head:
· Surely, they can’t think the stuff they’re suing
each other over is worth more than the souls of others they’re soiling with
their terrible witness.
· With all the perverted stuff they used to live
in, and were rescued from by Jesus’ grace, they think lawsuits are the way to
act like Christians?
· These people are so gifted by God’s Spirit; how
can they do these things?
This is the
problem with a headstrong attitude that demands its rights,
instead of bending a knee to the bigger picture Jesus painted by hanging on a
cross that belonged to us. It is better
to give in to humility and maintain your life and witness in Christ, even if it
means being defrauded by someone who is supposed to be a Christian brother or
sister, but hasn’t learned what the life in Christ demands.
Paul’s
reminder includes the fact that their little issues over disputes about who
gets what in a business deal, are distracting them from the bigger fish
Jesus has for their frypans…they are judges in training for the coming
Kingdom. They will be part of the
judgment of the ungodly; even to the point of their charge to judge God’s
angels. And that is no small
responsibility!
To muddy
the water with little disputes over worldly issues was defeating
God’s greater plans for them; their magnificently gifted witness was drowning
in a mud puddle.
Never let it be said because of your actions or your words, that you
have forgotten who you are in Christ; literally Whose you are!
Title image Pixabay.com ∞
Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©
For another post on 1 Corinthians 6, see Reason To Leave
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