‘Ten commandments or a hundred lawyers?’ The trial of Socrates was over 400 years before Paul wrote to the Corinthians, and it was at Athens, not Corinth, but there were 500 jurors. Dio Chrysostom wrote of ‘lawyers innumerable twisting judgments’ in Corinth.
- Christians will judge the world.
- 6:1-3; Matt.19:28; Rev.3:21. Christians will judge or rule angels. Tomorrow we judge angels but today we need to come before a pagan judge – one who casts incense at idols and consults the entrails of a chicken – in order to get what we want!
- Paul appeals to pagan authorities in Acts 16:35-39; 25:11. But there is a perspective at work here – 2 Tim.2:12.
- It is more Christ-like to suffer injustice than to demand justice.
- 6:7. For a Christian to take another Christian to court is already a defeat (ESV, NIV) or ‘utter failure’ (NKJV). You can win a battle and lose a war – see Matt.5:39-41; Rom.12:18-21.
- 6:8; James 2:8. Love does not retaliate and is willing to suffer.
- The Church should be able to solve most of her own problems.
- 6:4-5. The Talmud forbade Jews to go before Gentile judges. Surely the church should follow the same principle. As bishop of Hippo in North Africa, Augustine had to arbitrate lawsuits, and he often lamented that he was busy with ‘many tiresome things’. Litigation destroys community; there are more points of law, more cases of law, more lawyers, vaguer laws, but less decency and less law and order.