Can We Ever Get Christians to Revert to Civil Arbitration in Church?
Khen Lim
Image source: thepoliticalinsider.com
Paul’s teachings in 1 Cor 6:1-11 centre on how we should deal
with legal disputes without engaging unbelievers. Unfortunately we know only too
well that, in practice, it is very difficult to apply these principles. This is
because most churches do not have arbitration capabilities or that they are not
set up to handle them.
Indiscipline issues are often a struggle to deal with whenever
they arise in church and furthermore, there is a general tendency for church
members not to pay much attention to how a church may ‘judge’ a case. More
often than not, we see Christians hauling their civil cases to public courts
especially when they concern money and/or property. The irony is that we do
this while we tell others that we
understand what Paul teaches. In our real world, we may all tell others to heed
the apostle’s advice and yet we continue to seek civil judgement laid out
by…unbelievers…the wicked.
Central to Paul’s argument is that any judgement handed down
by unbelievers fall short of the ultimate true justice because they lack understanding
of genuine righteousness, the type that God – and not the world – pronounces.
On the other hand, believers who know God’s call for truth are better poised in
judging righteously and justly in His eyes. We know this for a fact because it
is God who says that, as saints, we have the divine leverage to judge the world
and the angels. Nothing beats God’s
word here and therefore, a court that is laid out by a church will always be a
superior alternative in dishing out justice and righteousness than any public
court of law or any man-made judicial system.
The problem, however, is that many believers themselves are
not interested in true and righteous justice. What they are after is profitable
gain and legal advantage. In other words, even if there is a church court
available, the losing party is more likely than not to ignore the decision and then
drag it to a public court where they will persist until the matter is finalised
with a view of winning regardless of whether it is justly done or not.
Since we know that this is the seemingly unavoidable reality,
our only option left is to think obliquely and therein lies two issues:
Firstly, we are believers, born again and died to self. We are
new people in Christ whose desire is
to live a life set apart to this world. We are no longer the sinners we once
were (though we still sin all the time). Our new identity in Christ means new
status, upgraded composure, different – and superior – conduct. And we are to
put all of this into practice.
Secondly we are to understand God’s larger picture for us.
This means adopting a different otherworldly perspective in which we are to
recognise that earthly matters are, no matter how major, actually trivial.
Instead of obsessing over our wealth and civil rights, perhaps we should start
aiming to build the Kingdom of God, to engage in unity in Christ with all our
loved ones, to spread the Gospel far and wide. If we begin to think earnestly
about these endeavours, we might start to realise that public lawsuits will
only smother our efforts and hinder our success for Christ. That would be
tragic.
Once we understand these two premises, maybe we can start to
identify the importance of protecting the reputation, worth and witness of our
church in the public view. And the only
way to achieve that is to avoid resorting to publicising our legal disputes
for all and sundry to hear about. In short, all this means three things to do:
firstly raise our opinion of the church, secondly lower our regard for publicly-issued
justice and thirdly substitute our penchant for safeguarding our public rights
with the notion of singularly pursuing righteousness in the eyes of God.
If we invest ourselves in the knowledge of how we view church
and not civil arbitration, maybe we can change the way we feel and respect God
as well. We need to get to the point of being ashamed when we discover that in ignoring the church’s righteous
counsel, we have instead resorted to public courts in order to get what we want. And by doing so, we
inadvertently chip at the foundation of the church’s work, weakening it and
damaging its reputation in the community.
We should also feel guilty when we put the interests of the
world before the Gospel, when we adamantly refuse to turn the other cheek but
instead to push the lawsuit through the public grinder or when we forsake the
Kingdom of God simply because we refuse to be cheated. On the other hand as
well, we must feel intense shame when confronting our own wickedness in which
we cheat and defraud our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. How do we
reconcile ourselves to God when we behave no differently to those who will
ultimately suffer His eternal punishment? All at the same time, we should
remain conscious of our salvation, that even as we fall into sin, we must not
ever lose sight of the fact that it is God whose grace and not our merit that
saves us.
If we take this view, perhaps Paul’s teachings might not be so
unachievable after all. If we understand perfectly the folly of suing fellow
believers in public court, we can then progress to the step where we can consider
appointing judges in a church court to deal with our property and rights
issues. If we can get to this point, it means that we face no difficulties at
all in placing the church’s interests before our own, preferring to suffer
injustices so that the church may not be hindered in its quest to be perfected
into the Body of Christ. More importantly if we can altogether stop cheating
and wronging our own siblings in Christ, we won’t even have lawsuits to deal
with, in the first place.
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