Dual PanelLawsuits among Christians
1IF one of your number has a dispute with another, does he have the face to go to law before a pagan court instead of before God's people?
2It is God's people who are to judge the world; surely you know that. And if the world is subject to your judgement, are you not competent to deal with these trifling cases?
3Are you not aware that we are to judge angels, not to mention day to day affairs?
4If therefore you have such everyday disputes, how can you entrust jurisdiction to outsiders with no standing in the church?
5I write this to shame you. Can it be that there is not among you a single person wise enough to give a decision in a fellow-Christian's cause?
6Must Christian go to law with Christian -- and before unbelievers at that?
7Indeed, you suffer defeat by going to law with one another at all. Why not rather submit to wrong? Why not let yourself be defrauded?
8But instead, it is you who are wronging and defrauding, and fellow-Christians at that!
9Surely you know that wrongdoers will never possess the kingdom of God. Make no mistake: no fornicator or idolater, no adulterer or sexual pervert,
10no thief, extortioner, drunkard, slanderer, or swindler will possess the kingdom of God.
11Such were some of you; but you have been washed clean, you have been dedicated to God, you have been justified through the name of the Lord Jesus and through the Spirit of our God.
12“I am free to do anything,” you say. Yes, but not everything does good. No doubt I am free to do anything, but I for one will not let anything make free with me.
13“Food is for the belly and the belly for food,” you say. True; and one day God will put an end to both. But the body is not for fornication; it is for the Lord -- and the Lord for the body.
14God not only raised our Lord from the dead; he will also raise us by his power.
15Do you not know that your bodies are limbs and organs of Christ? Shall I then take parts of Christ's body and make them over to a prostitute? Never!
16You surely know that anyone who joins himself to a prostitute becomes physically one with her, for scripture says, “The two shall become one flesh”;
17but anyone who joins himself to the Lord is one with him spiritually.
18Have nothing to do with fornication. Every other sin that one may commit is outside the body; but the fornicator sins against his own body.
19Do you not know that your body is a temple of the indwelling Holy Spirit, and the Spirit is God's gift to you? You do not belong to yourselves;
20you were bought at a price. Then honour God in your body.