ANNOUNCER: Is it right for a believer to initiate legal action against others, against businesses or corporations? The Bible does mention this, and so we need to have a discussion about what it says. We’ll do that next, here on Grace in Focus. Thank you, friend, for joining us today. This is a ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. Our website is FaithAlone.org, and we’d love for you to register and come to our national annual conference. This year, the dates are May the 18th through the 21st. Get all you need to get registered at FaithAlone.org, and make sure that you tell us if your kids are coming, we have VBS for them. Our theme is “Believe in Him for Life”, and once again our website, FaithAlone.org. 

Now with today’s question and answer discussion, here are Bob Wilkin and Sam Marr. 

SAM: Alright Bob, I believe that you got a question from a friend who something happened to him recently?

BOB: Yeah, so a friend of mine had a work experience. He emailed me and he was asking for prayer that he would maintain a good attitude because he wanted to keep the Judgment Seat of Christ in mind, and he didn’t want to have an improper attitude. Now he didn’t say it, but the implication was he thought it was inappropriate for him to initiate legal action; that that would be inappropriate, and I think his reasoning is based on a passage in 1 Corinthians 6 that maybe you could read Sam. 1 Corinthians 6:1-8 is one of the matters that evidently Chloe had reported to Paul concerning problems in the church of Corinth, and this is where believers in the church of Corinth were taking other believers in the church of Corinth to court, so maybe you could read that. 

SAM: Yeah, 6:1 says, “Dare any of you, having a matter against a brother [sic], go to the law before the unrighteous and not before the saints?” 

BOB: Okay, so basically the unrighteous there I would argue refers to unbelievers. 

SAM: “Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world will be judged by you, you are unworthy to judge the smallest matters? 

BOB: Or “are you unworthy.”

SAM: “Are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Do you not know that we shall judge angels?” 

BOB: And by the way, there I think that refers to the fact that we may be involved in the judgment of fallen angels, or it may mean that we are going to be, not judging in the sense of negative, but we’re going to be supervising angels in the kingdom one way or the other. 

SAM: “How much more, things that pertain to this life?” Then verse 4, “If you have judgments [sic] concerning things that pertaining to this life, do you appoint those who are least esteemed by the Church to judge?” And I guess that’d be talking about the unrighteous from verse 1. Verse 5, “I say this to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you, not even one, who will be able to judge between his brethren? But brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers! Now therefore, it is already an utter failure for you that you go to the law against one another. Why do you not rather accept wrong? Why do you not rather let yourselves be cheated? No, you yourselves do wrong and cheat and you do these things to your brethren!” 

BOB: Okay, so I’ve heard lots of people and I think that’s where my friend was coming from that felt it would be inappropriate to sue. I remember being in class with Zane Hodges and we came to this passage and Zane said something to the effect that we’re better off to be wronged and to suffer a loss than to take a fellow believer to court. And I raised my hand and being a bit presumptuous, I said, well, Prof Hodges, it seems to me that what Paul is talking about here are fellow believers in the church at Corinth and he says, right. So it really says nothing about whether I can take another believer to court. It’s only another believer within my local assembly that I can’t take to court. If it’s somebody that I don’t even know if they’re a believer or not, I know they go to some church and whatever, I don’t have to somehow quiz them and find out if they’re born again. They’re not part of my church and I don’t need to do that and he was like, well, I don’t know, I need to think about that. 

I could see people saying, okay, we shouldn’t be taking a fellow believer to court, but practically speaking, this becomes very impractical because how are we determining if this person who goes to a liberal church is born again? And, you know, if they learn that the reason we’re quizzing them is so that we won’t sue them if they give the right answer, they might be inclined to find out what answer we want and then give us that answer. But the whole point is, I think this is saying believers in the church of Corinth shouldn’t be taking believers in the church of Corinth to court and that would be true of any church. 

Now, my friend’s case, I don’t know if the people who are over him are professing Christians, but whether they are or not is beside the point because they’re not a member of his church, this isn’t a church member. Now, if they were, then that would fall under 1 Corinthians 6 and then let’s say someone is at Walmart and they slip on some water and their back is a little bit sore, right? Well, it would seem to me, I mean, I think what did you say? You thought it would be inappropriate to sue them just to make money, right? 

SAM: Yes, I think in conditions like that, whoever’s at fault, the onus of responsibility is on them. If you get hurt at Walmart and it’s obviously their fault, they should want to say, okay, we’ll, I don’t know, give you free something for life or we’ll give you this amount of money. But if they are clearly in the wrong and unwilling to make it right, then in America, the way we handle that situation is you file a civil lawsuit or something. And I think that is appropriate, but you can do that with a greedy mindset and say, I’m going to leech $10 million off of Walmart because I stubbed my toe. And at that point, it becomes sinful. 

BOB: Right. 

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BOB: Haven’t we all had experiences where, you know, my back was a little bit sore, but we don’t sue anybody because my back’s a little bit sore or my shoulder’s a little bit sore. I mean, I remember back it was about 12 years ago. I got hit by a guy doing over 40 miles an hour. I think it was closer to 50 and just smashed up my, it was a Honda Element. My back was sore for probably a week after that and I still have, you know, back issues from time to time, but I’ve had back issues since I was in my late 20s too. And I never sued him or anything, but here’s what I think. 

I think the key here is with my friend, he ought to consider legal action because what’s likely to happen is, if he pursues legal action within his company, they will not want to go to court and they will probably settle out of court and he will get a reasonable settlement. 

I can give you another example. I had another friend. This was over 10 years ago now. He was a hospice chaplain and he was let go because he had developed some severe medical problems and they restricted his work but he was still able to do the work. But they decided to cut him loose because they could get somebody cheaper and somebody that didn’t have any medical problems. Well, I put him in touch with a Christian attorney I knew and the Christian attorney in turn put him in touch with somebody who handled these kinds of issues and my friend ended up getting something like $50,000. Now, he was let go with no severance with no medical, no nothing and it wasn’t justified letting him go and he had a terrible medical condition that was such that he needed that money. So I don’t think he was like the stubbed toe, give me $10 million kind of guy. He was like, I just want something that fairly compensates me for firing me unjustifiably. 

And so I would say, look, if you’re a believer and you have some sort of a dispute, it’s okay to consider suing or at least pursuing your legal options but not someone in your own local church. So if it’s somebody in your local church, better to be wrong. But then what I would say is if it’s somebody in your local church, see if your church can’t set up some kind of binding arbitration to handle that. But if it’s somebody outside your church, then the issue is not, is this person a believer in Jesus Christ. The issue is this person isn’t part of your church, they’re part of some company. And as part of that company, well, then they have to be fair with their employees, right? Or fair with their customers if somebody falls or something? 

SAM: Yeah, part of it is holding somebody accountable. If someone is a believer and they’ve done something objectively wrong to you, losing a job, harm, whatever, then they should be more than willing to make it right. And if they’re not, then they need to be held accountable for it. One, because you need reparations for whatever it is. But two, I think it’s good for their conscience, their walk with the Lord, because if they do wrong by you and no one ever calls them out on it, then they’re probably going to keep doing it. And that as a believer, that’s not a good place to be in where you’re taking advantage of other believers. 

BOB: Yeah, exactly. So I’m all for the fact that we live in a litigious society and we shouldn’t just sue everybody and I would be extremely reluctant to sue anybody over anything. But having said that, if a person is in a situation where they have been wrongfully terminated and the company is not willing when you talk to them to make it right, then I think it’s appropriate to pursue your legal options and see what happens because there’s a very good possibility that they will negotiate with you once you get an attorney involved. They may not negotiate with you directly, like my friend, they didn’t want to negotiate with him. But you bring an attorney in, all of a sudden they become willing to negotiate and go, okay, how about eight months severance or how about a year severance or something? And you’ll come up to some number that’s reasonable. If I was my friend, I wouldn’t say, okay, how about a 50 year severance? No, I would think if I was my friend, something like a year, depending on how important he was to the company. If he had a really vital role in the company and they just cut him loose without cause, then maybe a year, year and a half would be appropriate. 

SAM: Yeah, I think that’s the important takeaway is the intention behind why you’re doing it. If it’s greedy, if it’s motivated by making money, then you’re in the wrong already. But if it’s honest intentions, then I think you’re, I think you’re safe. 

BOB: All right, well, I would encourage you all to study 1 Corinthians 6:1-8, meditate on it, think about it, come to your own conclusions because you don’t want to do anything that conflicts with your own conscience. But if you see this passage the way I do, then you would feel free in certain contexts to pursue your legal remedies against corporations or against companies or even individuals if they’re not a part of your local assembly. 

Well, thanks so much and remember, keep grace in focus. 

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