"Oh man" is the only way I know to start this one. It has some serious power kickin' out of it. The very first sentence shows how passionate about this Paul is, and how backwards the Corinthians had this. "If any of you has a dispute with another, dare he take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the saints? Do you not know that the saints will judge world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? Do you not know that we will judge angels?" That hit me like a rock! Not only should we not take disputes to the courts of the "ungodly", but in the end, we ourselves will become the judges of the entire WORLD with Christ!
Now here's the foundation shaker and my favorite part of all of this. Verses 7 and 8 say, "The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? Instead you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers." Do you catch the severity Paul reveals in these circumstances? No only are you doing the opposite of what you're supposed to, but it has resulted in your complete defeat. We, as members of Christ, are supposed to be versed in the art of being cheated, slandered, persecuted, and abused. If we don't even stand up to the challenge amongst our brothers, how will we stand them when we are amongst those who actually want to persecute and maybe even harm us? We need to not only be ready for these challenges, but to take them head on in the manner that Christ showed us, through humility, grace, and perseverance.
"But you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."
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