1 Corinthians 6:1-11

III. Lawsuits. 6:1-11

The subject of discipline, though connected with the domain of ecclesiastical life, trenched on the sphere of moral questions. We come now to the subjects which belong exclusively to the latter sphere.

As the apostle had dealt with discipline, first from the standpoint of the special case which had raised the question, then, more generally, he acts in a similar way in regard to the subject which is now to follow. He treats of lawsuits between Christians, 1. in 1 Corinthians 6:1-6, from the special standpoint of recourse had to heathen tribunals; and 2. in 1 Corinthians 6:7-11, from the more general viewpoint of the lack of righteousness and charity which such conflicts between brethren imply.

Meyer alleges that there is no logical relation between this subject and the preceding; he founds on the asyndeton between the last verse of chap. 5 and our 1 Corinthians 6:1. But the absence of any particle fitted to connect these two verses is much rather the evidence of a very profound bond of feeling between the two passages. For by this form the second becomes, as it were, a reaffirmation of the ideas expounded in the first. And, in point of fact, does not Paul here, as in the former passage, combat in this proud Church the total lack of care for its own dignity before God and men? “Not only do ye not judge those whom you have a mission to judge (them that are within); but, moreover, ye go to have yourselves judged by those who are beneath you (them that are without)!” The basis of these two passages is therefore the same: it is the idea of the judicial competency of the Church in relation to its own members, but applied to two wholly different sins. Edwards understands the thing nearly in the same way. “He has just expounded the greatness and power of the Church; and now he asks if one could be found among them who would dare to do violence to the majesty of Christ who dwells in it.”