Does Christ Contradict Himself on the Courts?

Mat 5:40 And if any man sues you in court, and takes away your coat, let him have [your] cloke as well.

This verse seems at first a simple extension of Christ's previous statement about turning the other cheek. However, just fifteen verses ago, Christ told us to stay court under the threat of losing all our money. Now, in seeming contradiction, he says that if we go to court, we should give our opponent more than they actually win. Is the financial threat of going to court a concern or not?

It is looking at this type of surface issue that drive us into the heart of Christ's meaning. Yes, both statements concerned court. Yes, one was concerned about losing money in court and one says not to be concerned about that. However, both statements are concerned with our private relationships with individuals rather than our social, legal relationships with them.

In both statements, the message is that government cannot solve our problems with other people. Government doesn't work on a materialistic level and government never works on a spiritual level. Before or after taking problems to the government, we are still left with the more important task of working problems out with others on a personal level. The only difference is that using the government is always going to be more expensive materially.

In the earlier post, Christ's lesson was that we should work problems out with individuals privately before we go to court. In this lesson, his concern is that we put our individual relationship above our financial interests after we go to court. In the earlier lesson, we are taught that having good relationships with others is important to our physical well-being. In this lesson, we are taught that having good relationships with others in more importan that our physical well-being. The ealier lesson offered a materialistic reason for doing what was right spiritually, saying that there was no conflict between the two. This lesson says that doing what is right spiritually is more important than our materialistic concerns.

"Sues in court" is from krinô, which means "to pick out," "to choose," "to decide a dispute," "to adjudge," "to estimate," "to interpret," "to decide in ones favor," "to bring to trial," and "to accuse."