“Does any one of you, when he has a case against his neighbor, dare to go to law before the unrighteous and not before the saints? Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? If the world is judged by you, are you not competent to constitute the smallest law courts? Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more matters of this life?”

Turning now to the third problem the Corinthians wrestled with (after divisions and rank immorality), Paul addresses their disastrous conflict resolution methods. Paul shames them for resorting to all legal means available to themselves; it doesn’t faze them to use the courts of Roman law. Indeed, the Roman legal system was the most advanced of the ancient world. The men of the Roman senate who knew and could manipulate the law would rise in prominence and power, for they were able to control their contemporaries. The Corinthian believers were infected with the same mindset.

The great irony here is that Christ—and Him crucified—has overcome the world (John 16:33). And “in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us” (Rom. 8:37). Paul here tells the Corinthians essentially the same thing. As saints (for this is what they are, as noted in 1 Corinthians 1:2), they will judge the world. If, then, in the future they will judge the entire world—including the Roman empire, but also beyond—surely now they could judge the conflict among themselves as saints. But the Corinthians, because they were worldly, resorted to worldly power. This is what was offered to Jesus by the devil in the wilderness, but He refused. The Corinthians were sidestepping Christ and taking Satan up on his offer!

Furthermore, saints (i.e. believers in Jesus Christ) will also judge angels, and that would include the diabolical hordes of demons and their leader Satan. The only authority greater than that of believers is the authority of God Himself. So how in the world can believers in this life rely on the legal court system to get their way or solve their grievances? To resort to these means is to deny the power of God. It is to put ourselves so much in the center of existence and the top of the pedestal of life, that we will stop at nothing to attain and keep our position of prominence. Sounds very much like the Roman elite, who lived for their own glory. The Corinthians might as well go all the way and build statues of themselves to be placed prominently in the church sanctuary, or engrave their names on the end of the pews, or emblazon them on the marquee on the front lawn. Paul provides another means of dealing with conflict that is befitting those who believe in Christ and Him crucified.

Lord, help me see when I fall into un-Christian methods of conflict resolution.