“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11)
The Basket Case Chronicles #52
“I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you? No, not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren? But brother goeth to law with brother, and that before the unbelievers” (1 Cor. 6:5-6).
The dispute between brothers is one level of failure, but it is the willingness to have that dispute adjudicated by unbelievers that really astonishing Paul. What? Why would a church want to publicly admit that they don’t contain within their ranks a man wise enough to serve as a judge in cases like this?
The fact that former colleagues or business partners are now on opposite sides of an awful breech is one kind of failure, but it is part of living in a fallen world. But Paul has his eye on the new world that is forming in and through the church. And when the church lets this kind of thing go, they are saying (in effect) that the new world is failing also. But if the new world is to fail, then what is the whole point? Why are we doing this at all?