But brother ... - One Christian goes to law with another. This is designed as a reproof. This was wrong:
- Because they ought rather to take wrong and suffer themselves to be injured 1 Corinthians 6:7;
- Because they might have chosen some persons to settle the matter by arbitration without a formal trial; and,
- Because the civil constitution would have allowed them to have settled all their differences without a lawsuit.
Josephus says that the Romans (who were now masters of Corinth) permitted the Jews in foreign countries to decide private affairs, where nothing capital was in question, among themselves. And Dr. Lardner observes, that the Christians might have availed themselves of this permission to have settled their disputes in the same manner. Credibility, vol. 1:p. 165.