So far in this series we have considered four ways that Christians can engage secular politics in our time, between the ascension and return of Christ: Prayer, Organize, Persuade, Legislate, and Litigate. Certainly the first point, prayer, cannot be controversial, since Scripture clearly teaches that believers must pray for the secular authorities. The other points, organize, persuade, and legislate, may be  more controversial since they entail a greater degree of direct involvement in civic life and secular politics. Indeed, some readers have interpreted the series to imply that all Christians must be involved in civic life and politics. This series is not intended to burden the consciences of those who are not so inclined, who feel no calling to be involved in civil life or secular politics. Apart from the biblical injunction to pray for the authorities, the rest of the agenda is a matter of Christian liberty. The fifth point of this proposed agenda for Christian engagement with secular politics is litigation.

Litigation And The Law Of Christ

This aspect of the agenda may be particularly difficult for some believers because of the way that Paul’s instruction in 1 Corinthians 6:1–8 has been interpreted and applied. God’s Word says:

When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life! So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church? I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers, but brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers? To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? But you yourselves wrong and defraud—even your own brothers! (ESV)

Does this passage forbid Christians from participating in lawsuits? No. John Calvin explains:

Paul does not here condemn those who from necessity have a cause before unbelieving judges, as when a person is summoned to a court; but those who, of their own accord, bring their brethren into this situation, and harass them, as it were, through means of unbelievers, while it is in their power to employ another remedy. It is wrong, therefore, to institute of one’s own accord a law-suit against brethren before unbelieving judges. If, on the other hand, you are summoned to a court, there is no harm in appearing there and maintaining your cause.¹

Calvin was correct. Paul does not here forbid all litigation. The issue in Corinth was something like this. The congregation was being divided by self-described “Super Apostles” (2 Cor 11:5; 12:11). These men were using the congregation as an opportunity for self-aggrandizement. They criticized Paul and the other apostles as inadequate and promoted themselves as the true apostles. They were schismatic and their influence led to a number of troubles. To use Luther’s language, they were “theologians of glory.” By contrast, the Apostle Paul was a “theologian of the cross.” The self-described “Super Apostles” were seeking power and glory “in this age” (1 Cor 3:18). They were debaters of “this age” (1 Cor 1:20). Paul, however, was a minister of “the age to come” (Eph 1:21). He came preaching Christ and him crucified (1 Cor 1:23; 2:2). The “Super Apostles” were working by nature but Paul worked by the Spirit of God (1 Cor 2:10–16).

One manifestation of the immaturity and division that plagued the Corinthian congregation was their practice of taking grievances against one another not to the pastors and elders for resolution but to the pagan judges in the secular courts. In this way, as Calvin explained, they made the gospel scandalous for all the wrong reasons. They brought the church into disrepute. Remember, the Christians in Corinth (and everywhere else) in the first century were an obscure group. The pagans sitting in judgment over them in Corinthian courts would have been expert in Roman law but they likely had never heard of the Christians. Suddenly they had a case before them to decide between followers of a crucified (and raised!) Jewish rabbi from a backwater in the Roman empire.

It takes little imagination to think how dismayed Paul must have been to learn that members of the Christ-confessing covenant community in Corinth were settling their problems not before the elders and the congregation but before the pagans, the very people whom he hoped to evangelize.

Paul’s concern is that believers ought not to be taking other believers to secular courts in order to settle matters that ought to be settled by arbitration before the church, which was competent to decide such cases. The church, however, is not omnicompetent. It is a spiritual institution established to fulfill a divine mission to make disciples of the nations, to administer the holy sacraments, and to administer church discipline (Matt 16:17–20; 18:15–20; Matt 28:18–20). Her weapons are spiritual (2 Cor 6:7; 10:4). There may be experts in secular law in the congregation, but the church as church is not commissioned to sort out the sorts of things that ordinarily come before secular courts and legislative bodies.

To litigate is to take a case to court. When an issue cannot be resolved by persuasion, negotiation, or by a legislative body, then citizens in a representative republic like the USA have a third, co-equal branch of government to which they can and may appeal, the courts. In order to see what I have in mind, consider the case of Gabrielle Clark et al versus State Public Charter School Authority et al. over whether a tax-funded school has the authority to host “workshops requiring children to make public professions about their racial, sexual, gender & religious identities.” It would be easy to list dozens and perhaps hundreds of legitimate causes of legal action against public authorities who have abused their authority. In recent years, during the Covid lockdowns and afterward, parents became more aware of the sorts of things being taught to their children. In some places that led parents to attend school board meetings (a legislative body) to express their displeasure and even outrage at what they saw (e.g., schools pushing a radical sexual ideology) or did not see (actual instruction in basic skills). In some places (e.g., Loudon County, VA) that led to changes in the school board via the ballot box and even a new governor for the state. In other places, however, school boards have become so ideologically committed to the revolutionary sexual ideology that they have more or less told parents to go home and to be quiet.

In such a case, when appeal to the appropriate legislative body has failed to produce a satisfactory outcome and where continuation of an outrageous policy or practice presents a significant risk or harm to students and families then litigation is a reasonable and just course of action.

In this case, we do not have Christians taking one another to law before pagans but citizens exercising their liberties and rights under the law in order to hold a public, tax-funded agency or body to the law as written or perhaps even to challenge an unjust law.

NOTES

1. John Calvin, Commentaries on the Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians, trans. John Pringle, vol. 1 (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 198–99. Charles Hodge adds,

The Roman laws allowed the Jews to settle their dispute about property by arbitration among themselves. And the early Christians, who were not distinguished as a distinct class from the Jews, had no doubt the same privilege. It is not necessary, however, to assume that the apostle has reference here to that privilege. It was enough that these civil suits might be arranged without the disgraceful spectacle of Christian suing Christian before heathen magistrates. The Rabbins say, “It is a statute which binds all Israelites, that if one Israelite has a cause against another, it must not be prosecuted before the Gentiles.” Eisenmenger’s Entdeckt. Judenth. ii. p. 427.

Charles Hodge, An Exposition of the First Epistle to the Corinthians (New York: Robert Carter & Brothers, 1857), 92–93.

©R. Scott Clark. All Rights Reserved.

You can find this whole series here.

RESOURCES

• Subscribe To The Heidelblog!
• Download the HeidelApp on Apple App Store or Google Play
• Resources On Christian Nationalism
• The Heidelblog Resource Page
• Heidelmedia Resources
• The Ecumenical Creeds
• The Reformed Confessions
• The Heidelberg Catechism
• Recovering the Reformed Confession (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2008)
• Why I Am A Christian
• What Must A Christian Believe?
• Heidelblog Contributors
• Support Heidelmedia: use the donate button or send a check to

Heidelberg Reformation Association
1637 E. Valley Parkway #391
Escondido CA 92027
USA
The HRA is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization

Post authored by:

• R. Scott Clark

  

  R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.

  More by R. Scott Clark ›