1 Corinthians 6:1

“Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints?”

The word τολμᾶ, dares he, heads this passage, exactly because it appeals vigorously to Christian dignity: “What! there is one who has this miserable courage!” One needs courage to degrade himself. The pronoun τίς, some one, does not mean that there are many who are in this case; but there are too many if there is one. A single such case casts reproach on the whole Church. The Jews, who had the feeling of their theocratic nobility, had not recourse in their litigations to heathen tribunals; a system of arbitration established among them decided such questions; and the Corinthians had not Christian honour enough to rise to the same level!

For the moment the apostle leaves out of account the fact of the κρίνεσθαι, getting judged, having a suit; he will return to it, 1 Corinthians 6:6. Here he fixes solely on the way in which these affairs are treated at Corinth.

The article τόν, the, before ἕτερον, other, serves strongly to individualize the adverse party in every case.

The heathen, of whom the official judges form part, are designated, not as usual by the term ἄπιστοι (those who do not believe), but by the term ἄδικοι, unjust. The apostle would make palpable the contradiction there is in going to ask justice of those who are themselves devoid of justice. The prep. ἐπί here signifies in presence of; as in the phrases ἐπὶ δικαστῶν, τοῦ δικαστηρίου (Plato, Demosthenes). Christians receive the title of honour οἳ ἅγιοι, the saints. They are people whom a Divine consecration has profoundly separated from the unjust and sinful world, and who ought therefore to possess within them the standard of justice. Had not Daniel seen the judgment given to the saints of the Most High? (1 Corinthians 7:22).