'Do you not know,' he says, 'that the saints will judge the world?' Surely he is referring to those passages both in the Gospels and in the Epistles where we are clearly told that when the Lord returns the saints are going to share the throne of judgment with him. These questions he asks imply a certain degree of knowledge that the Corinthians ought to have had. Even though they had been going to church for years they did not know the answers to Paul's questions.)

Years ago I gave this to some high school kids and most of them flunked it. (If you would like to take this little test, I suggest you do this. In this chapter there are six occasions where the apostle asks the question, 'Do you not know?' This is a little quiz he gives as to our theological knowledge, and he always bases our behavior on what we know or do not know about theology. Paul then suggests, in the two questions he asks, that anybody who does such a thing is really an ignorant person: 'Do you not know that the church is going to judge the world, and do not you know that the church is going to judge angels?' Paul implies that, of course, by the word he uses - that one who does such is uncaring he has reached the point where he does not care what anybody thinks or feels and he is acting regardless of the injuries that may be done to others. This, the apostle says, is foolish, and he has two reasons for implying this.įirst, he implies that it is an act of audacious boldness: 'Dare any one of you having a grievance against his brother take it to a law court to settle?' His clear implication is that this is an audacious act it is an outrageous act it is a bold, daring thing to do. They were obviously engaging in lawsuits, dragging them before the Roman courts, and having all their quarrels and dirty linen washed in public and settled by a secular court. The apostle does not use the word stupid here, but his implication is that these people are very foolish for doing what they are doing. When one of you has a grievance against a brother, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, matters pertaining to this life! (1 Corinthians 6:1-3 RSV) Notice how he brings in this subject, Verse 1: Second, he says, lawsuits are shameful.Finally, Paul says they even raise suspicions as to the spiritual state of the ones involved. The first thing the apostle says is lawsuits among brethren are stupid they are ridiculous they are foolish. These first eleven verses divide very naturally into three subdivisions. The dictionary definition of lust is: 'Any obsessive craving or desire.' So you can see how someone who is greedy, grasping, and determined to hang onto his 'rights' - especially regarding material matters - is guilty of some form of lust, of making 'things' more important than people. Therefore, a lawsuit is an attempt to force another person to yield to you what you regard as you 'right,' and this is really another form of lust. Lawsuits usually arise out of greed, out of covetousness, out of a desire to retain certain material benefits. Perhaps somebody is saying, 'Well, what has that got to do with lust?' The answer, of course, is that it has everything to do with it because it is a form of lust. But in between you have this section, the first eleven verses of Chapter 6, dealing with lawsuits among brethren. In the closing part of Chapter 6 he returns to that subject, and deals with prostitution in Corinth and the Christians' relationship to that problem. He dealt with a very serious case of incest that was widely known in the congregation there. In Chapter 5, which we looked at last week, remember that he was talking about immorality and lust and its problems in the church at Corinth. The apostle seems almost to change his subject in this section.

As I read the article I could not help but wonder if they had spent any time reading the Bibles they smuggle, because here in this passage Paul very clearly says that kind of thing among believers is very definitely wrong. They are now suing each other before the courts in libel actions for damages. Just last week, I picked up a current issue of a Christian magazine and read a report concerning two Christian organizations that are both involved in smuggling Bibles behind the Iron Curtain. The Apostle Paul is dealing with the problem of lawsuits among brethren in this passage from First Corinthians 6.

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