Food for thought — If possible, settle issues out of court, Paul tells his Corinthians

No if-possible about it.

Via Ronald Knox, 1 Cor 6:1-11:

1 Are you prepared to go to law before a profane court, when one of you has a quarrel with another, instead of bringing it before the saints?
2 You know well enough that it is the saints who will pass judgement on the world; and if a world is to abide your judgement, are you unfit to take cognizance of trifling matters?
3 You have been told that we shall sit in judgement on angels; how much more, then, over the things of common life?
4 You would do better to appoint the most insignificant of your own number as judges, when you have these common quarrels to decide.?
5 That I say to humble you. What, have you really not a single man among you wise enough to decide a claim brought by his own brother?
6 Must two brethren go to law over it, and before a profane court?
7 And indeed, it is a defect in you at the best of times, that you should have quarrels among you at all. How is it that you do not prefer to put up with wrong, prefer to suffer loss?
8 Instead of that you commit wrong, you inflict loss, and at a brother’s expense.
9 Yet you know well enough that wrong-doers will not inherit God’s kingdom. Make no mistake about it; it is not the debauched, the idolaters, the adulterous,
10 it is not the effeminate, the sinners against nature, the dishonest, the misers, the drunkards, the bitter of speech, the extortioners that will inherit the kingdom of God.
11 That is what some of you once were; but now you have been washed clean, now you have been sanctified, now you have been justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, by the Spirit of the God we serve.

Think about it.

Leave a comment