NOTES for Co1 6:1-11
Paul urges the Christians of Corinth to resolve all problems arising among them within the church community, without turning to outside judges (vv. 1–6). In giving this advice, the apostle undoubtedly draws on a practice widespread among Jews, where it was customary to entrust disputes and lawsuits within the community to rabbis or other specially authorised persons. As a rule, this was a form of arbitration whose decisions might have no force under the laws of the country in which a particular community lived, but were nevertheless usually scrupulously observed by all its members. Evidently, Paul recommends this practice to Christians too, considering it more suitable for the Church than recourse to a secular court. This is not only because secular courts do not always follow in their decisions the norms of the Torah, on which alone a just resolution of any conflict is possible, especially when relations between Christians are at issue.
It is also because any resolution of a conflict between Christians involves intervention in their mutual relations, and those relations form part of the life of the Kingdom that a Christian normally lives. If Christians consider it acceptable to allow outsiders, who as a rule give no thought at all to the life of the Kingdom, to intervene in their relations, they are thereby effectively cutting themselves off from the Kingdom. Indeed, if a Christian accepts in principle that their relations with their neighbour may be ordered by the laws of a world not yet transfigured rather than by the laws of the Kingdom, those relations cease, for that Christian, to be part of the Kingdom—as does their life, which includes those relations. It is no accident that Paul says it is better to forgo one's rights altogether than to try to build relations with one's brothers according to the laws of a world not yet transfigured (vv. 7–11): the loss to the parties will then be far smaller than that incurred by a ‘victory’ over one's neighbour at the cost of losing the Kingdom.