What Does 1 Corinthians 6:1 Mean?
Does any of you, holding a deed against another, dare to be judged before the unaligned and not before the set-apart ones?
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints?THE KEY
The verse’s sharpest contrast is not between conflict and peace, but between misaligned judgment and a set-apart people.
THE MEANING
When conflict reaches the reader, this question asks whether the forum chosen matches the community’s set-apart calling. A dispute is not only about its claim; where it is brought shows whose judgment the reader treats as competent. The verse places the unjust court and the saints side by side, making that choice visible now.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the assumption that a disagreement between believers is inherently outside the discernment of their set-apart community.
THE ROOT
ἀδίκων
adíkōn
GROWS FROM
δικ- (dik-) with privative ἀ- (a-)
The word family carries the idea of justice and what is right; the prefix negates it, yielding those outside that alignment.
“unaligned” in this verse is adíkōn. “Unjust” points to more than a disliked person: it names judgment outside the alignment of what is right. That makes the contrast with the set-apart community a contrast between kinds of judgment.
ALSO GROWS
díkaios: just, right, aligned
δίκαιος
It names the positive form of the justice the verse says the court lacks.
dikaiosýnē: justice, righteousness, alignment
δικαιοσύνη
This branch makes visible the alignment that stands opposite to the “unjust” court.
adikía: injustice, wrongdoing
ἀδικία
It shows the same negated justice as a condition, not only as a description of people.
ἁγίων
hagíōn
GROWS FROM
ἁγι-
hagi-
Set apart; belonging to a distinct or sacred sphere.
“set-apart ones” in this verse is hagíōn. “Saints” names people as set apart, not merely as unusually virtuous. The verse presents them as a distinct community whose discernment is being passed over.
ALSO GROWS
hagiázō: set apart, consecrate
ἁγιάζω
It expresses the action associated with being set apart.
hagiasmós: setting apart, consecration
ἁγιασμός
It names the condition or process carried in the word “saints.”
πρᾶγμα
prâgma
GROWS FROM
πραγ-/πρασσ- (prag-/prass-)
An act or affair, something done or undertaken.
“a deed” in this verse is prâgma. The “matter” is not a vague abstraction: the word carries the sense of an affair or deed at issue. The dispute is concrete, and the question is where that real matter is brought for judgment.
ALSO GROWS
prássō: do, act, perform
πράσσω
It links the dispute to something done or undertaken.
prâxis: action, deed, practice
πρᾶξις
It keeps the matter grounded in concrete actions rather than an abstract disagreement.
THE PATTERN
Disputes within a people are heard through a shared order of discernment, from an initial hearing to a wider authority.
And let them judge the people at all times; and it shall be that every great word they bring to you, but every small word they shall judge, so it will lighten from upon you, and they shall carry the burden with you.And I commanded your judges at that time, saying, Hear and respond between your brothers, and judge in alignment between each man and his brother, and the sojourner who is with him.And if he turns his ear aside from them, tell it to the assembly. And if he turns his ear aside even from the assembly, let him be to you as one of the nations and as the tax collector.THE THREAD
Have you not seen that the set-apart ones will judge the world? And if the world is judged by you, are you too light for the smallest courts?In verse 1, “go to law” is κρίνεσθαι (krínesthai, to be judged); in verse 2, “judge” is κρινοῦσιν (krinoûsin, will judge), from κρίνω (krínō, judge or discern). The same root names both the judgment sought outside and the discernment attributed to the saints.
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