1 Corinthians 6:1

1 Corinthians 6:1. Dare any of you, having a matter against his neighbour, go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints? Excellently, says Bengel here, ‘by this grand word “Dare” does the apostle mark the injured majesty of the Christian name,' thus caused. Not without a special design is the contrast here so sharply drawn between Christians and heathens; for the Jews themselves made it a rule never to carry their disputes before heathen tribunals. Yet let it not be thought that there is any condemnation here of the general principle of having recourse to law for the settlement of differences. For civil government is a Divine ordinance, of which “law” is an essential department; and our apostle himself once and again claimed the protection of law, heathen though the empire then was. Indeed, there are cases, in the best conditioned Christian countries, where nice and intricate points can be satisfactorily and peacefully settled only by a legal tribunal. What is here so sharply rebuked is, exposing before eyes that ought to see in Christians only that which is “lovely and of good report,” what was the opposite of this, as if (by a cruel satire on our Lord's words) to invite those heathens to ask, “What do ye more than others?” (Matthew 5:47).