Paul has moved from where they took their disputes to the fact that they had lawsuits at all. Going to law with one another was already "utterly a fault among you." Barnes renders it, "you are entirely wrong in this thing." So Paul asks why they would not rather accept the wrong and the loss. The first question asks why they will not bear an injury; the second asks why they will not even let themselves be cheated. Barnes says the believer should be willing to be injured "rather than to dishonor the cause of religion" by lawsuits. Gill traces the problem to its root: "a want of brotherly love."

Paul answers with what they were actually doing: "Nay, ye do wrong, and defraud, and that your brethren" (1 Corinthians 6:8). Far from suffering wrong, some of them were the ones doing it. He then warns that "the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Corinthians 6:9).

The word translated "fault" is hēttēma. Thayer defines it as a diminishing or decrease, and so a defeat or loss. It appears in only one other place in the New Testament, Romans 11:12. The ESV catches the sense: "To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you." In the KJV, Paul turns the words of his questions around in the next line: they would not "take wrong" or be "defrauded," yet "ye do wrong, and defraud" (1 Corinthians 6:8).

Paul's questions echo a pattern found across Scripture. Barnes connects this verse with Proverbs 20:22 ("Say not thou, I will recompense evil; but wait on the LORD"), with Jesus' teaching in Matthew 5:39-40, and with Paul's own words in Romans 12:17, 19 and 1 Thessalonians 5:15. God's people do not have to win every claim, because God Himself has promised to repay.

Paul's point is that a church fight costs more than it gains. Even the side that wins in court has already lost, because brothers have been turned into opponents in front of unbelievers. Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary says, "The peace of a man's own mind, and the calm of his neighbourhood, are worth more than victory."