1 Corinthians 6:4

“If then ye have judgments of things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the Church!”

Here is the practical conclusion from the foregoing argument; in its form there is a touch of irony. The μέν already suggests that after what Paul is about to say, he will have something more to add of a graver character: the unsuitableness of law processes in themselves (1 Corinthians 6:6 seq.). It appears to me that the καθίζετε ought to be taken as imperative: “Set up!” as it has been by the old Greek commentators, the Vulgate, Calvin, Beza, Bengel, Hofmann, Edwards. “If it is needed to have judgments on earthly things, set up the least of you, those who pass for the least intelligent: they will be good enough for this want.” Luther and most moderns (Olshausen, de Wette, Rückert, Meyer, Heinrici) have rejected this sense and taken the verb καθίζετε as interrogative or exclamatory, applying the words, “those who are least esteemed in the Church,” to the heathen tribunals before which the Christians of Corinth went to crave justice: “Do you then choose as your judges those who...?” or: “You set up as your judges those who...!” This meaning seems to me inadmissible: 1. because of the οὖν, then, the natural meaning of which cannot in this case be preserved; 2. the term set up cannot, without doing violence to the meaning of the word, signify: to take as judges men already constituted such by others; 3. the phrase, them who are nothing esteemed in the Church, cannot in the apostle's view apply to heathen. But Paul may well apply the term with a touch of irony to designate those of whom small account is made in their assemblies: “Do not go and seek your first orators to make them arbiters in such cases, but take the least among you.” 1 Corinthians 6:5 very naturally connects itself with this meaning.