When Rights Go Wrong

INTRODUCTION: On Sunday December 14, 2014, the New York Jets outlasted the Tennessee Titans 16-11. The Jets showed heart and fight, as QB Geno Smith rallied them with a fourth-quarter comeback. And Jets fans across the country … groaned with despair! It was a costly win. You see, the Jets had a losing record. Instead of moving up to third in the NFL draft order, the Jets—fourth at the start of the day—dropped to sixth, behind several other teams also hoping to draft a star quarterback. In that year’s draft, QB Jameis Winston was taken first, QB Marcus Mariota was taken second. The Jets drafted DT Leonard Williams with the sixth pick, who today plays for the New York ... Giants. Sometimes it’s better to lose than to win.

Now I know you don’t believe me when I say that! You’re thinking, “When could it possibly be better to lose than to win? Sounds like something only a loser would say!” Careful—your culture is showing. In the apostle Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, we run into so many tensions between what it means to follow Christ while living in our culture. And today’s passage is a doozy—Paul argues forcefully that if we’re really the people of God in Christ, then sometimes it’s better for us to lose than to win. [READ vv. 1-4]

I. BETTER TO LOSE IF WINNING IMPAIRS OUR IDENTITY (1-4)

A. This section begins with Paul’s horror and disgust over what is going on in the church. “Dispute” here implies a legal complaint. Most common litigation in that culture involved property disputes or business dealings.

The original problem is easy to reconstruct: Apparently one brother (Man A) had defrauded another (Man B) in some way. To redress his grievances (Man B) took (Man A) before the civil magistrate, which was publicly located in the heart of the marketplace. The event is a defeat for the church in every way, for the community as a whole, as well as these two brothers.

In the prior chapter, Paul addressed an issue of sexual deviancy that the church had not addressed, and told them, “y’all need to throw that guy out of the fellowship—have nothing to do with him until he repents.” So here in chapter 6, what’s in view is a civil dispute concerning money or property, NOT a criminal matter like domestic violence or predatory behavior, where someone is a danger to others. That’s a whole different kettle of fish, so please don’t mishear what I’m not saying.

B. We are dealing with a recurring phenomenon in human society, namely that someone who has been wronged seeks vindication in the courts. Paul doesn’t tell them not to have disputes. (“Y'all need to love Jesus and hug it out.”) The problem here is that the case was brought “before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the Lord’s people.” (1) There is no particular criticism of corruption in the Roman courts implied here (common though such corruption was). Paul probably recalled with gratitude the fair treatment he had received from Gallio, the Roman proconsul, when he had been in Corinth (Acts 18). By calling them “ungodly,” Paul isn’t demeaning the corruption of the Roman courts, but appealing to the special identity of God’s people. The court judges are “the ungodly,” who will not inherit the kingdom of God. Indeed, they will themselves be judged by God’s people at the great End Times judgment (3).

The absurdity of the Corinthian position is that the Lord’s people will someday judge the very world before whom they are now appearing and asking to render a judgment! They are impairing the identity of who they are as the people of God

ILLUSTRATION: The Lion King: Mufasa appears in a vision to remind his son: “Simba, remember who you are. You are the son of a king.”

C. Paul begins this sharp paragraph as though it were a word to the offender, but instead it becomes a word to the church as a whole. It turns out that the failure of these two men is primarily a failure of the church to be the church. Paul wrote the Romans “do not think of yourselves more highly than you ought.” But here, he tells the Corinthians, in effect, “do not think of yourselves more lowly than you ought.” In the first place, Paul says, the church is an eternal, End Times community, whose status as God’s future people absolutely determines life in these present days. Our future in Christ determines how we live in the present. Paul picks up a common idea from Jewish End Times theology: “the Lord’s people will judge the world” at the final judgment. Paul does not explain this further, nor does anyone else in the NT. In God’s final judgment of the world, we, God’s people, will in some way be involved.