Lawsuits

The umbrella collects passages that warn against bringing disputes hastily into open litigation, with explicit counsel from Proverbs and an apostolic rebuke from Paul.

Settle Disputes Privately

Proverbs cautions against rushing into a public legal proceeding when a private settlement is still possible: "Don't hastily bring [it] to court, or else what will you do in its end, when your fellow man has put you to shame. Debate your cause with your fellow man [himself], and don't disclose the secret of another; or else he who hears it will revile you, and your infamy will not turn away" (Prov 25:8-10). The risk is twofold — losing the case in shame, and exposing private matters that turn back on the accuser.

Suing Fellow Believers

Paul presses the same logic into the assembly at Corinth, but with sharper edges. Believers dragging one another before pagan magistrates exposes the church's failure to handle its own affairs: "Dare any of you⁺, having a matter against the other, go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints?" (1Cor 6:1). Those who will judge the world and angels (1Cor 6:2-3) ought not be incompetent to settle the smallest matters among themselves.

The deeper indictment is that the lawsuit itself signals defeat: "Therefore already it is altogether a defect in you⁺, that you⁺ have lawsuits one with another. Why not rather take wrong? Why not rather be defrauded?" (1Cor 6:7). Suing a brother before unbelievers (1Cor 6:6) reverses the calling — the believers are themselves wronging and defrauding one another (1Cor 6:8).