Being threatened with a lawsuit or getting tied up in court that allows unscrupulous parties to declare falsehood with impunity is one of the most disruptive injustices in life. Alternately, for intra-family conflicts for a party to initiate or threaten of litigation without regard for taking intentional steps to engage in a mature (for believers, spirit lead) discussion before embarking a litigation path is just terribly short-sighted.
From my perspective, our legal system is adversarial, in layman’s terms, the other side is your enemy. It’s typically adversarial and at worst, sometimes the system is highly skewed to favor one side which promotes widespread abuse. It is assumed that clients are only to be trusted through your attorneys and communication between opposing clients is discouraged (it is often the case that a judge will order parties, at the last minute before trail, with or without counsel).
Becoming opposing parties in a more or less, all-or-nothing type objective, means common sense and the goodwill are not of great consideration but achieving your terms from a legal precedent is, which can be labeled a victory but on a narrow realm of reality (case precedent).
In other words, If someone has not exhausted the effort to discuss the problem and rather has let fear drive them, they may decide that there is no room to discuss or to mediate for fear they may not receive their “fair” share. They will decide that litigation is the way to go. In more extreme cases, If they have nothing to lose and everything to gain by being unscrupulous, that simply exacerbates an already corrupted legal system. It’s unlikely they would embark on such a project if there was not ample precedent to get something for little or nothing (and the other party suffers).
Between followers of Christ you have a spirit-lead mandate
The Apostle Paul exhorts believers not to take conflict into the worldly court and to seek resolution using worldly law when leaders in the Church are expected to have the wisdom offered by God’s moral statutes.
While this is specifically addressing the Church and how disputes ought to be handled between believers in Christ, I think there’s also a common thread of decency that he is touching on regardless of being Church-worthy or not.
Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints? 2 Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world will be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters? 3 Do you not know that we shall judge angels? How much more, things that pertain to this life? 4 If then you have judgments concerning things pertaining to this life, do you appoint those who are least esteemed by the church to judge? 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? 6 But brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers! – 1 Corinthians 6:1-6.
In other words, people who are caught up with coveting are not likely to consider the needs of others and are not likely to exercise humility in the attainment of what they think is theirs. As a result, legal proposals are declared where one party attempts to gain power over another. The problem is, in secular court, everything is based on thin legal statutes and anything that falls outside of that narrow view is not a consideration for lawyers focused on achieving objectives through litigation where threats abound rather than working out win-win solutions.
A non-Christ centered manner of conflict resolution would be just like a litigious legal system.
Litigation: The act or process of litigating; a suit at law; a judicial contest. The conduct of a lawsuit. A legal proceeding in a court; a judicial contest to determine and enforce legal rights.
Adversarial: Relating to or characteristic of an adversary; involving antagonistic elements. Characteristic of, or in the manner of, an adversary; combative, hostile, opposed.
The Apostle Paul is basically warning the Church in Corinth which was suffering from its members taking their disputes to the secular court system: If you are going to engage is resolving disputes among believers in Christ through litigation, this is not the right way to show the world that you are driven by Christ-Centered, or gospel centered principles. In other word, for two Christians to engage in a worldly combative way to resolve matter in a secular court, you not only making the Church look bad but you’re probably in danger of being hypocritically short of fulfilling every Commandment. In other words, you’ve learned little or nothing about living a Christ-centered life.
Litigation among family and the Church is damaging
In a family, or the Church, leadership is enormously helpful to avoid these potentially damaging legal conflicts. If everyone believes that a litigation attorney armed with the civil case law looking for clients will evaluate several solutions win-win solutions, that is a conflict of interest. They will look at legal precedent set in adversarial case history, not how families with good intercommunication habits and Godly values would work out an amiable solution with minimal financial cost. This is not to say lawyers do not have their advantages and necessity (a good, strong, decent lawyer is always appreciated), but the average attorney is not a family counselor (unless they are a family friend with mutual interest in all opposing parties) or expected to be a spiritual leader hoping your family relations will not suffer.
In the Church, it is always a conflict of interest, to forsake the moral laws of God to align yourself with a coercive, legally belligerent element to achieve your goals. Once you engage a litigation attorney, you have surrendered your interest in the well being of the relationships between people, families or the Church. This is a way of saying, leaders in families as well as Churches, being ignorant of God’s directives, will find it convenient to abdicate their God given leadership responsibilities that they never knew they were called to have..
God’s rule is higher than man’s rule, God’s wisdom is greater than man’s wisdom
In order to seek the truth you need to study the Scripture and strive to understand it, not from your petty perspective and your personal wants, but from the perspective of the Lord Jesus Christ who paid with His perfect human life dying outside Jerusalem along the public crossroads, hanging on a cross for your sins.
For a one minute explanation of the Gospel, watch this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCP9UcC7BzE
For a review of the Ten Commandments: https://www.challenyee.com/the-ten-commandments/
CKY
12.17.23