Wednesday, April 28th, 2010

Speaking Like a Peacemaker

Have you ever wondered, “Why do we have so many lawyers?” If you open the Yellow Pages, you’ll see ad after ad for lawyers. If you turn on the TV, you’ll see commercials asking if you’ve “been hurt or injured in an accident? Then call the law office of ______.”

Why do we have so many lawyers?

• And the answer is the same reason we have so many broken families.
• The same reason we have so many church splits.
• The same reason we have so many murders.
• The same reason we have so many suicides.

The reason? We lack the 3^rd fruit of the Spirit. We are missing peace.

This past Wednesday, the Indiana Supreme Court released its Annual Report that shows how in our state over the last ten years, the number of court cases has skyrocketed.

– Total criminal and civil cases : Up 29%.
– Child abuse cases: Up 25%.
– Termination of parental rights: Up 39%

Americans are missing peace. Hoosiers are missing peace. And they’re hoping to find it in court.

But a court decision can give you only a sense of temporary peace.

A court can’t provide true peace.

In fact many times a court decision brings anything but peace.

The jury rules in favor of the bad guy.

The slick lawyer uses loopholes in the law to get an unjust ruling.

Most of the time, a plaintiff and defendant don’t leave the courtroom feeling good about each other.

And so in 1 Cor. 6:1-8, Christians are warned not to take trivial civil cases against each other to court. Instead we are supposed to go to church leaders to make peace.

Former US chief justice, Warren Burger, said:

“One reason our courts have become overburdened is that Americans are increasingly turning to the courts for relief from a range of personal distresses and anxieties.

The courts have been expected to fill the void created by the decline of the church, the family and neighborhood unity.”

-Justice Warren Burger, “Annual Report on the State of the Judiciary,” American Bar Association Journal (March 1982): 68.

Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia said this of 1 Cor. 6:

“I think this passage [I Cor. 6:1-8] has something to say about the proper Christian attitude toward civil litigation. …Good Christians, just as they are slow to anger, should be slow to sue.”

-Justice Antonin Scalia, “Teaching About the Law, ” Quarterly 7, no. 4 (Christian Legal Society, fall 1987): 8-9.

Real peace will not be found in a lawsuit. Real peace will not be found in a courtroom. Real peace is found in Christ. And so His body, the church, should be full of peacemakers.