But I will come to you when I have passed through Macedonia, for I am passing through Macedonia.
Parallel Translations
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But I will come to you when I have passed through Macedonia, for I am passing through Macedonia.
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I will come vnto you after I have gone over Macedonia. For I will goo thorowout Macedonia.
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Nowe I will come vnto you, after I haue gone through Macedonia (for I will passe through Macedonia.)
Cross-references (4)
Passages linked to 1 Corinthians 16:5 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Acts 19:21 Now after these things had ended, Paul determined in the Spirit, when he had passed through Macedonia and Achaia, to go to Jerusalem, saying, “After I have been there, I must also see Rome.”
- 1 Corinthians 4:19 But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord is willing. And I will know, not the word of those who are puffed up, but the power.
- Acts 20:1-3 After the uproar had ceased, Paul sent for the disciples, took leave of them, and departed to go into Macedonia. When he had gone through those parts, and had encouraged them with many words, he came into Greece. When he had spent three months there, and a plot was made against him by Jews as he was about to set sail for Syria, he determined to return through Macedonia.
- 2 Corinthians 1:15-17 In this confidence, I was determined to come first to you, that you might have a second benefit, and by you to pass into Macedonia, and again from Macedonia to come to you, and to be sent forward by you on my journey to Judea. When I therefore was thus determined, did I show fickleness? Or the things that I purpose, do I purpose according to the flesh, that with me there should be the “Yes, yes” and the “No, no?”
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 5 Now I will come unto you, when I…
5 Now I will come unto you, when I shall pass through Macedonia: for I do pass through Macedonia.
Ver. 5. When I shall come, &c.] He was not then yet come into Macedonia, neither was this Epistle written at Philippi (as the subscription saith,) a chief city of Macedonia.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain Observe here, St. Paul acquaints them how he had…
Observe here, St. Paul acquaints them how he had laid his business, ordered his stay and station, where he was, and designed afterwards to come and winter with them, and not to see them in passage only.
From whence we learn, That a wise contrivance of our own business, of our course of labour, and of what we design to do, is very lawful, provided it be done with submission to the will of God. The apostle declares that he had in his intentions contrived, whither to go, where to stay, how long to continue: but adds, If the Lord permit. All was with submission to the wisdom and will of God.
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Farther, he informs them of his present intention to stay at Ephesus till Pentecost, because God had opened there unto him a great door for the propagation of the gospel, and had abundantly blessed his labours to the good of many. But there were many adversaries of the truth there, which made his stay longer at Ephesus both necessary and unavoidable.
Learn thence, that the great success of the gospel is usually attended with many adversaries, and great opposition. The devil stirs up all the rage and fury he can against the professors, but especially the preachers of the gospel: but where the devil is most angry, we may hope we have done most good: and that ought to encourage us to stay in our place, though our difficulties are many, and our discouragements great. I will tarry at Ephesus, where a great door is opened to me, though there are many adversaries.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain In this passage the apostle notifies and explains his…
In this passage the apostle notifies and explains his purpose of visiting them, concerning which, observe, 1. His purpose: he intended to pass out of Asia, where he now was (vide Co1 16:8, Co1 16:19) and to go through Macedonia into Achaia, where Corinth was, and to stay some time with them, and perhaps the winter, Co1 16:5, Co1 16:6. He had long laboured in this church, and done much good among them, and had his heart set upon doing much more (if God saw fit), and therefore he had it in his thoughts to see them, and stay with them. Note, The heart of a truly Christian minister must be much towards that people among whom he has long laboured, and with remarkable success. No wonder that Paul was willing to see Corinth and stay with them as long as the other duties of his office would permit. Though some among this people despised him, and made a faction against him, doubtless there were many who loved him tenderly, and paid him all the respect due to an apostle and their spiritual father. And is it any wonder that he should be willing to visit them, and stay with them? And as to the rest, who now manifested great disrespect, he might hope to reduce them to a better temper, and thereby rectify what was out of order in the church, by staying among them for some time. It is plain that he hoped for some good effect, because he says he intended to stay, that they might bring him on his journey whithersoever he went (Co1 16:6); not that they might accompany him a little way on the road, but expedite and furnish him for his journey, help and encourage him to it, and provide him for it. He is to be understood of being brought forward in his journey after a godly sort (as it is expressed, Jo3 1:6), so that nothing might be wanting to him, as he himself speaks, Tit 3:13. His stay among them, he hoped, would cure their factious humour, and reconcile them to himself and their duty. Note, It was a just reason for an apostle to make his abode in a place that he had a prospect of doing good. 2. His excuse for not seeing them now, because it would be only by the way (Co1 16:7), en parodō - in transitu - en passant: it would only be a transient visit. He would not see them because he could not stay with them. Such a visit would give neither him nor them any satisfaction or advantage; it would rather raise the appetite than regale it, rather heighten their desires of being together than satisfy them. He loved them so much that he longed for an opportunity to stay with them, take up his abode among them for some length of time. This would be more pleasing to himself, and more serviceable to them, than a cursory visit in his way; and therefore he would not see them now, but another time, when he could tarry longer. 3. We have the limitation of this purpose: I trust to tarry awhile with you, if the Lord permit, Co1 16:7. Though the apostles wrote under inspiration, they did not know thereby how God would dispose of them. Paul had a purpose of coming to Corinth, and staying there, and hoped to do good thereby. This was not a purpose proceeding from any extraordinary motion or impulse of the Spirit of God; it was not the effect of inspiration; for had it been such he could not have spoken of it in this manner. A purpose formed thus in him must have been the purpose of God, signified to him by his Spirit; and could he say he would come to Corinth upon this view only, if God permit, that is, that he would execute God's own purpose concerning himself, with God's permission? It is to be understood then of a common purpose, formed in his own spirit. And concerning all our purposes it is fit we should say, "We will execute them if the Lord permit." Note, All our purposes must be made with submission to the divine providence. We should say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this and that, Jam 4:15. It is not in us to effect our own designs, without the divine leave. It is by God's power and permission, and under his direction, that we must do every thing. Heathens have concurred in acknowledging this concern of Providence in all our actions and concerns; surely we should readily own it, and frequently and seriously attend to it. 4. We have his purpose expressed of staying at Ephesus for the present. He says he would stay there till pentecost, Co1 16:8. It is very probable that at the time of writing this epistle he was in Ephesus, from this passage, compared with Co1 16:19, where he says, The churches of Asia salute you. A proper salutation from Ephesus, but hardly so proper had he been at Philippi, as the subscription to this epistle in our common copies has it. "The churches of Macedonia salute you" had been much more properly inserted in the close of a letter from Philippi, than the other. But, 5. We have the reason given for his staying at Ephesus for the present: Because a great door, and effectual, was opened to him, and there were many adversaries, Co1 16:9. A great door and effectual was opened to him; many were prepared to receive the gospel at Ephesus, and God gave him great success among them; he had brought over many to Christ, and he had great hope of bringing over many more. For this reason he determined to stay awhile at Ephesus. Note, Success, and a fair prospect of more, was a just reason to determine an apostle to stay and labour in a particular place. And there were many adversaries, because a great door, and an effectual, was opened. Note, Great success in the work of the gospel commonly creates many enemies. The devil opposes those most, and makes them most trouble, who most heartily and successfully set themselves to destroy his kingdom. There were many adversaries; and therefore the apostle determined to stay. Some think he alludes in this passage to the custom of the Roman Circus, and the doors of it, at which the charioteers were to enter, as their antagonists did at the opposite doors. True courage is whetted by opposition; and it is no wonder that the Christian courage of the apostle should be animated by the zeal of his adversaries. They were bent to ruin him, and prevent the effect of his ministry at Ephesus; and should he at this time desert his station, and disgrace his character and doctrine? No, the opposition of adversaries only animated his zeal. He was in nothing daunted by his adversaries; but the more they raged and opposed the more he exerted himself. Should such a man as he flee? Note, Adversaries and opposition do not break the spirits of faithful and successful ministers, but only enkindle their zeal, and inspire them with fresh courage. Indeed, to labour in vain is heartless and discouraging. This damps the spirits, and breaks the heart. But success will give life and vigour to a minister, though enemies rage, and blaspheme, and persecute. It is not the opposition of enemies, but the hardness and obstinacy of his hearers, and the backslidings and revolt of professors, that damp a faithful minister, and break his heart.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Now I will come unto you,.... Which he again…
Now I will come unto you,.... Which he again assures them of, as being his real intention and design; though some had given out that he would not come to them any more, and hoped they should never see him any more; see Co1 4:18.
When I shall pass through Macedonia; hereby fixing the time when he intended to visit them after he had gone through that country, and had received their collections for the saints at Jerusalem, which the churches there so generously made, and pressed him to the ministering of, of which he speaks in his next epistle.
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For I do pass through Macedonia; not that he was then passing through Macedonia, or was in it, and so at Philippi, from whence this epistle is said to be written, as the subscription at the end of it expresses, for he was now at Ephesus; see Co1 16:8 and from thence was this epistle written; he was not in Macedonia till some time after, see Co2 2:12 but the sense is, that he should take his tour through Macedonia; and so the Vulgate Latin version renders it, "for I shall pass through Macedonia"; and so coming into Greece, he intended to come to Corinth, and stay some time with them.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain I pass through Macedonia - I purpose going that…
I pass through Macedonia - I purpose going that way.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 5. I will come unto you, when I…
Verse 5. I will come unto you, when I shall pass through Macedonia] St. Paul was now at Ephesus; for almost all allow, in opposition to the subscription at the end of this epistle that states it to have been written from Philippi, that it was written from Ephesus: and this is supported by many strong arguments; and the 8th verse here seems to put it past all question: I will tarry at Ephesus; i.e. I am in Ephesus, and here I purpose to remain until pentecost. Though Macedonia was not in the direct way from Ephesus to Corinth, yet the apostle intended to make it in his way. And it was because it was not in the direct road, but lay at the upper end of the AEgean Sea, and very far out of his direct line, that he says, I do pass through Macedonia-I have purposed to go thither before I go to Corinth.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain 1Co 16:5-9. Now I will come unto you —…
1Co 16:5-9. Now I will come unto you — If Providence permit; when I shall pass — Or rather, when I shall have passed; through Macedonia; for I do pass through Macedonia — I purpose going that way, that I may visit the churches there, and receive their collections. And it may be that I will abide, &c. — That I shall continue some time; yea, and winter with you — Having spent the summer and autumn in my progress through Macedonia. That ye may bring me on my journey — That some of you may accompany me a little way, and help me forward toward Jerusalem, or whithersoever else I go — Through whatever parts I may pass thither. For, &c. — As if he had said, I speak of coming at some future time; for I will not see you now — In my way from hence to Macedonia. But I trust — That the little delay, which this plan may occasion, will be made up to your satisfaction; for I purpose to tarry a while with you — When I come, which the necessities of the churches of Macedonia will not at present give me leave to do. But I will tarry at Ephesus until Pentecost — A plain intimation this that he was now at Ephesus, and consequently that the inscription added at the end of this epistle, which tells us it was written from Philippi, is far from being authentic. Indeed, this may be gathered also from the salutations in the close of this epistle, which are not from the churches of Macedonia, but from Asia. And, it may be affirmed in general, that, as Dr. Doddridge justly observes, no credit is to be given to these additions, which have been presumptuously made to the epistles, and very imprudently retained. For a great door and effectual is opened to me — “The door of a house being a passage into it, the opening of a door, in the eastern phrase, signified the affording a person an opportunity of doing a thing. See Col 4:3; Hos 2:15. The apostle’s long abode at Ephesus was owing to his great success in converting the Ephesians, and such strangers as had occasion to resort to that metropolis. But about the time this letter was written, his success was greater than common. For many, who used curious arts, the arts of magic and divination, were converted, and burned their books, containing the secrets of these arts, Act 19:17-20. This so enraged the idolaters at Ephesus, but especially the craftsmen, that they raised the great tumult described Act 19:23-41.” — Macknight. Therefore the apostle adds, and there are many adversaries — Many opposers, who, (he hereby insinuates,) if he were to leave Ephesus immediately, might perhaps take advantage of his absence, to the great injury of the new-planted church there.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Now I will come unto you - I purpose…
Now I will come unto you - I purpose to come unto you. He had expected to see them on his way to Macedonia, but, on some account, had been induced to abandon that design. See the notes at 2Co 1:15-17.
When I shall pass through Macedonia - When I shall have passed through Macedonia. He proposed to go to Macedonia first, and, having passed through that country, visiting the churches, to go to Corinth. For the situation of Macedonia, see the notes at Act 16:9.
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For I do pass through Macedonia - I design to do it. It is my present intention. Though he had abandoned, from some cause, the design of passing through Corinth on his way to Macedonia, yet he had not given up the design itself. It was still his intention to go there.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Now I will come. St. Paul came to Corinth…
Now I will come. St. Paul came to Corinth a year after he had written this epistle. Titus, his favourite disciple, arrived at Corinth before St. Paul, and was received with the greatest marks of esteem: by him he sent his second epistle to the Corinthians. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain His first intention had been (Co2 1:15-16) to pass…
His first intention had been (Co2 1:15-16) to pass through them (Corinth) to Macedonia, and again return to them from Macedonia, and so to Judea; this he had announced in the lost epistle (Co1 5:9); now having laid aside this intention (for which he was charged with levity, Co2 1:17, &c., whereas it was through lenity, Co2 1:23; Co2 2:1), he announces his second plan of "not seeing them now by the way," but "passing through Macedonia" first on his way to them, and then "tarrying a while," and even "abiding and wintering with them."
for I do pass--as much as to say, "This is what I at last resolve upon" (not as the erroneous subscription of the Epistle represents it, as if he was THEN at Philippi, on his way through Macedonia); implying that there had been some previous communication upon the subject of the journey, and also that there had been some indecisiveness in the apostle's plan [PALEY]. In accordance with his second plan, we find him in Macedonia when Second Corinthians was written (Co2 2:13; Co2 8:1; Co2 9:2, Co2 9:4), and on his way to Corinth (Co2 12:14; Co2 13:1; compare Act 20:1-2). "Pass through" is opposed to "abide" (Co1 16:6). He was not yet in Macedonia (as Co1 16:8 shows), but at Ephesus; but he was thinking of passing through it (not abiding as he purposed to do at Corinth).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain PERSONAL MATTERS—CONCLUSION, 1Co_16:5-24.
PERSONAL MATTERS—CONCLUSION, 1Co_16:5-24.
a. Paul’s purpose to visit Corinth, 1Co_16:5-9.
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5. Will come… when… through Macedonia—St. Paul’s first purpose (probably announced in a lost epistle sent before this) was to cross the sea strait from Ephesus to Corinth. For changing this purpose, he had to defend himself earnestly in 2Co_1:23, where see note, against a charge of levity.
I do pass—As he afterwards did, and wrote his second epistle from there. Some early transcriber of this epistle read this phrase: for I am passing through Macedonia, and recorded his blunder in the note at the end, assigning Philippi (in Macedonia) as the place whence it was written.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 5. I will come unto you, when I shall…
5. I will come unto you, when I shall pass through Macedonia] Rather, ‘when I have passed through Macedonia.’ Here the Apostle announces the change of a purpose previously intimated—whether in the lost Epistle, or in some other manner, it is impossible to say—of coming first to Corinth, passing on to Macedonia, and returning to Corinth. See 2Co_1:15-16. The reason of this change is given in 2Co_1:23; 2Co_2:1; 2Co_7:8-12; 2Co_12:20-21; 2Co_13:2; 2Co_13:10. For the imputations which it brought on the Apostle, see 2Co_1:17.
for I do pass through Macedonia] This passage has been translated, for I am passing through Macedonia, a rendering which is shewn to be erroneous by 1Co_16:8, in which St Paul announces his intention of remaining at Ephesus for some time longer. But it has led to the incorrect note at the end of the Epistle in our version, which states that the Epistle was written at Philippi. See Introduction.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (5) For I do pass through Macedonia.—A misrepresentation of…
(5) For I do pass through Macedonia.—A misrepresentation of these words gives rise to the incorrect statement that this Epistle was written at Philippi, which is to be found in the subscription at the end of this chapter in our English Bible. The Apostle does not here refer to where he is at the moment of writing, but to his intention regarding his journey. He had intended to go first to Corinth (see 2Co_1:15-16), but he has altered that plan, and says that his intention now is to pass through Macedonia first, and then visit Corinth. Then he says, “For I do pass through Macedonia.” To this intention the Apostle adheres. (See Introduction.)
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain When I shall pass through Macedonia; rather, when 1…
When I shall pass through Macedonia; rather, when 1 have passed through Macedonia. For I do pass through Macedonia; rather, for 1 mean to pass through Macedonia. We learn from 2Co_1:15, 2Co_1:16, that it had been St. Paul"s intention to sail from Ephesus to Corinth, thence, after a brief stay, to proceed to Macedonia, and on his return to come again for a longer stay at Corinth on his way to Judaea. He had in an Epistle, now lost, (see 1Co_5:9) announced to them this intention, he changed his plan because, in the present disgraceful state of disorganization into which the Church had fallen, he felt that he could not visit them without being compelled to exercise a severity which, he hoped, might be obviated by writing to them and delaying his intended visit. Nothing but his usual delicacy and desire to spare them prevented him from stating all this more fully. (2Co_1:23 2Co_2:1) Mistaking the kindness of his purpose, the Corinthians accused him of levity. He defends himself from this charge in the Second Epistle, and he carried out the plan which he here announces. (2Co_2:13 2Co_8:1 2Co_9:2, 4 12:14 13:1)
Vers. 5-9.
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God"s will the rule, and spiritual usefulness the end of life.
I will come unto you when I shall pass through Macedonia," etc. Two remarks are suggested.
I GOD"S WILL SHOULD BE THE RULE OF LIFE. "But I trust to tarry a while with you, if the Lord permit." The text tells us that Paul had made a plan to visit the Corinthians, to "tarry a while" with them, and to spend the winter with them, after he had passed through Macedonia, and tarrying, at Ephesus until the Pentecost; but see, he rests this plan (no doubt dear to his heart) on the Lord"s will the Lord permit.
1. There is a belief implied here. The great truth implied in this expression of Paul"s is that God is in the history of individual man. He is not merely in the great material universe, in angelic hierarchies, in human empires, communities, Churches, families, but in the individual man himself. He is not too absorbed in the vast for this, not too great for this. Paul believed that God was interested in him personally, and that he arranged for him personally. There is something sublime, bracing, and ennobling in the thought that God knows me, cares for me, arranges for me.
2. There is an acquiescence implied here. "If the Lord permit." This means, "I have no will of my own." As if he had said personally, "Consulting merely my own will, I should like to winter with you, my Corinthian friends, but I subordinate my will to the will of my God. I feel myself in his hands, and am ready to act in everything according to his arrangements.
II SPIRITUAL USEFULNESS SHOULD BE THE AIM OF LIFE. "But I will tarry at Ephesus until Pentecost. For a great door and effectual is opened unto me, and there are many adversaries." Three remarks are here suggested.
1. That wherever the gospel signally triumphs, great opposition may be anticipated. Paul was now at Ephesus, where he had laboured for a considerable time, and with such signal success that a deep and widespread opposition was excited, even to passion. (see Act_19:9-20) It has ever been so: wherever there has been a great revival of religion there has been unusual opposition. The latent enmity of the serpent is ever roused by the dissemination of spiritual light. Christ kindled a fire upon the earth.
2. That opposition to the gospel often affords specially favourable opportunities for the labour of the evangelist. "For a great door and effectual is opened unto me, and there are many adversaries." Religious excitement is ever more favourable to the spread of religion than religious monotony. You stand a better chance of converting an earnest sceptic than a traditional religionist. Excitement opens a "door.
3. That the true evangelist will be stimulated in his labours rather than discouraged by opposition. Instead of quitting Ephesus, where there were so many adversaries, Paul says, "I will tarry at Ephesus until Pentecost." Little souls are dismayed by difficulties, great souls are roused to action by them. Difficulties awaken their courage, stimulate their activities, and marshal their faculties for battle.
Vers. 5-9.
Words to those who travel.
I WE SHOULD ALWAYS BE ON OUR MASTER"S BUSINESS. This we may be if we are engaged in "secular" affairs. Every part of life is to be consecrated to God. A Christian is a Christian always, and a servant always. Everything may be consecrated. Whether we eat or drink, or whatever we do, we may do all to the glory of God. Secular engagements become truly sacred if in them
(1) we act justly;
(2) seek to please God;
(3) avoid injury to our fellows;
(4) endeavour to display a Christian spirit.
To do this as we travel, we should
(1) preserve a prayerful frame of mind;
(2) watch vigilantly for temptations.
These are often very numerous and strong when we are away from our usual surroundings, and not amongst those who know us. We should embrace every opportunity of doing good. Not only to men in things temporal, but also in things spiritual. At last it will seem marvellous to some that their "cheerily" and "love" extended only to men"s lower needs.
II OUR MOVEMENTS SHOULD BE ORDERED OF THE LORD.
1. In secular affairs we should seek the mind of the Lord. He who can help us in the great can help us in the small. There is nothing too insignificant to pray over.
2. In sacred affairs we need ever say, "If the Lord permit. "D.V" on a bill amounts to little; we need it engraved on the heart.
3. Those who, evangelizing, pass from place to place will do well to study the conduct of their apostolic prototype.
(1) He did not think a difficult post meant a post to be abandoned as speedily as possible. Some are all for running away. They are ever "seeking rest," but they are ever "finding none." There is no "rest" out of the path of duty.
(2) He was not overwhelmed by a little opposition, nor by much. Many adversaries being there was a reason why he should be there. Where the enemy is strongest, there the loyal soldiery should be strongest.
(3) He read. in an open door the mind of the Lord directing him to remain. He did not read this in
(a) comfort,
(b) applause,
(c) remuneration,
(d) predilection.
Some communities have attempted to sterotype the mind of the Lord in a three years" pastorate; this looks more like the mind of man than the mind of the Lord. Some divines can only hear certain, "calls of the Lord: it is to be feared that these "calls" are, after all, nothing more than the echoes of their own voices. H.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Now I will come unto you, when I shall…
1Co_16:5-9
Now I will come unto you, when I shall pass through Macedonia.
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Gods will the rule and spiritual usefulness the end of life
I. Gods will should be the rule of life. Paul had made a plan to visit the Corinthians, to tarry a while with them, but he rests this plan (no doubt dear to his heart) on if the Lord permit.
1. A belief is implied here, viz., that God is in the history of individual man. He is not merely in the material universe, in angelic hierarchies, in human communities, churches, families. He is not too absorbed or too great for this. Paul believed that God was interested in him personally, and that He arranged for him personally. There is something bracing and ennobling in this thought.
2. An acquiescence is implied here. I have no will of my own. Personally, I should like to winter with you, but I subordinate my will to the will of my God. I am in His hands, and am ready to act in everything according to His arrangements.
II. Spiritual usefulness should be the aim of life. (1Co_16:8-9).
1. Wherever the gospel signally triumphs, great opposition may be anticipated. Paul was now at Ephesus, where he had laboured for a considerable time, and with such success that passionate opposition was excited (Act_19:9-20). It has ever been so: wherever there has been a great revival of religion there has been unusual opposition. The latent enmity of the serpent is ever roused by the dissemination of spiritual light. Christ kindled a fire upon the earth.
2. Opposition to the gospel often affords specially favourable opportunities for the labour of the evangelist. Religious excitement is ever more favourable to the spread of religion than religious monotony. You stand a better chance of converting an earnest sceptic than a stagnant religionist. Excitement opens a door.
3. The true evangelist will be stimulated rather than discouraged by opposition. It is only little souls who are dismayed by difficulties. (D. Thomas, D.D.)
I will tarry at Ephesus until Pentecost.--
What Christianity does for a man
1. These sentences, casually thrown in, as it were, at the end of a letter, reveal incidentally, and therefore really, the spiritual quality and tone of the writer. It is one thing to make a formal statement of what Christianity has done, and another to show its results without any attempt at composition or eye to effect. An incidental touch will reveal the whole man.
2. Paul comes within sight in these instructions. In the previous chapter he was quite beyond the range of our vision. Here he becomes more like one of ourselves. These are only little sentences after the great thunder-bursts of the resurrection chapter, and come too soon to get their full force and value; but they show what Christianity did for Paul. It made him--
I. Most dauntless under circumstances of an intensely discouraging kind. Paul looked at the door rather than at the adversaries, and therein the quality of the man is disclosed. The great soldier must be in the thick of the fight. When the wolf is most dangerous, the shepherd must be most watchful. Paul seemed to have a kind of inborn liking for danger. Herein he was most Christ-like, and quietly but severely rebukes the most of his successors. What an eye we have for the adversaries! and therein is our quality revealed. What moaning there is in the ministry and the Church! The neighbourhood is going down; the population is moving; trade is bad; people are opposed to us. There are many adversaries: Paul is perfectly aware of that; and he counted them one by one, and said, Humanly speaking, they are an overwhelming majority, but Divinely speaking, they are for ever in a minority, for He that is for us is more than they that be against us. We must take the completer view, and then we shall see that the great host that is encamped against the Lord is but a handful of moths. And so every adversary should be a stimulus to nobler endeavour--a prick in the side causing us to spring forward with more vital alertness and determination to win the battle of the Lord. We should have said that there being many adversaries was an excellent reason for leaving Ephesus; Paul made it a substantial reason for remaining there.
II. Paternally and most tenderly considerate (1Co_16:10-11). Timotheus was young in experience; the kind of man that would soon be lost in a crowd; shrinking, modest, one who would never count for much if tumult were to rule the day. See, then, says Paul, see that he may be with you without fear. When you shake hands with him, let him feel the pressure of love in the grip which welcomes him by holy symbol: under encouragement he can do a great deal. If he find you critical, pedantic, fault-finding, his young heart will sink. To be with the Church without fear--that is to elicit all that is best in the young minister. The fear of man bringeth a snare.
III. Magnanimous (1Co_16:12). Apollos was an eloquent man, and mighty in the Scriptures, Pauls bodily presence was weak, and his speech contemptible. He knew that, yet he says, As touching our brother Apollos,--there is tenderness in the very utterance of the mans name; he is not Apollos, but our brother Apollos, etc. We are now and then very human: there is perhaps a temptation to persuade Apollos to go in some other direction and so keep out of our particular way. Conclusion: We cannot put these things on from the outside; these are the fruits of the Spirit. All assumed courage is cowardice, a pretended considerateness is the most objectionable patronage, an affected magnanimity is hypocrisy. We must grow in these graces, but the growth must be from within; these are not to be taught or learned in the schools: these are the victories of grace, the miracles of God. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Counsel and character
It is not an unnatural demand that counsel should correspond with the character of the counsellor. How much Seneca and Bacon have lost in moral influence through the discrepancy between what they wrote and what they were! St. Pauls consistency comes out in a comparison between his advice in 1Co_16:13-14 and his revelation of himself in 1Co_16:8-9. The Corinthians were exhorted to--
I. Vigilance. Well, was Paul careless? He resolves to tarry at Ephesus. Here he had to watch--
1. Against the surprises of temptation. He was not ignorant of Satans devices, and was incessantly watchful lest Satan should get an advantage over him. He kept under his body, etc.
2. Against the vicissitudes which might otherwise have thwarted his plans and marred his work. Act_19:1-41. tells us of some of these vicissitudes and how Paul turned them to his own account. It was this Church he addressed when he urged this duty by the force of his well-known example (Act_20:31).
3. For opportunities. It required no ordinary vigilance to detect in Johns disciples the raw material of Christian missionaries, and to secure sufficient influence with the contradictory elements in the Jewish synagogue and the school of Tyrannus (cf. 1Co_9:19-22)
.
II. Steadfastness. This quality is tested in two ways.
1. By disheartening difficulties. These tried Paul to no ordinary degree in a city whose population deserved to be throttled man by man, a city notorious for licentiousness, superstition, and idolatry. He was in jeopardy every hour; he died daily, yet his faith never wavered (1Co_4:9-13). No small portion of the trials enumerated in 2Co_11:23-28 must have fallen to his lot at Ephesus.
2. By the existence of an apparently legitimate excuse for the want of it. A man is sometimes compelled to stand fast because he cannot move. The real test is when a way of escape opens. Such a way opened to Paul in the shape of an invitation to Corinth, and the seeming desirableness of accepting it. How much his presence was needed at Corinth; and the work at Ephesus surely would not suffer under the superintendence of Aquila, Priscilla, and Apollos. The change would do him good. But no; his business was to do the work in hand so that it would not require to be done a second time. So he sent a letter with an influential deputation to Corinth, and chose to abide at Ephesus till Pentecost. How many Christians beguile their conscience with the persuasion that an invitation to another sphere is a legitimate excuse for the abandonment of their present one of difficulty, whereas it may be only a subtle attack of the adversary on their steadfastness! Our text went further to strengthen a previous exhortation to abide in the calling wherein they were called in God. So it comes to us.
III. Courage. He who said Quit you like men, etc., illustrated his own counsel by resolving to tarry at Ephesus, because--
1. There was a great door and effectual there. A great opportunity tests courage because it requires coolness, self-control, fortitude, and all the elements of the nobler heroism, Many a soldier who has nerve to follow when called to command or carry a forlorn hope, loses heart, not because of the danger, but because of the responsibility.
2. There were many adversaries--Jews, magicians, etc.
IV. Charity. Charity--
1. Is kind, and he who is so anxious that all things should be done in charity, sets the example (verse 10). Timothy had a delicate task to perform, and Paul therefore asked that he might perform it under conditions which would ensure credit and success. How many a promising youth for the want of a kind word or a helping hand has gone to wreck!
2. Envieth not. It is as alien from the selfishness of jealousy as from the selfishness of greed. Now if any one could have excited Pauls jealousy it was Apollos, and yet hear what he says of him (verse 12). With what force does the exhortation come to all factions and rivalries, backed as it is by Pauls conduct as touching his brother Apollos. (J. W. Burn.)
A great door and effectual is opened unto me.
An open door
1. St. John beheld a door opened in heaven. A door opened before him into the mysteries of the unseen, invited him to expatriate there. It was a door opened for ministerial labour and achievement on earth of which St. Paul tells us. Whose portion, would you choose? The chance of getting behind the veil would be very tempting; yet however passionately we might yearn, and with no unworthy yearning, to pierce the inscrutable, would it not be a diviner impulse that should lead us to accept the opportunity of bettering ill conditions or supplying needs that cry?
2. Which was the happier of the two, St. John or St. Paul? In the case of the former there would be a blissful excitement that bore in it a throb of pain, a sense of oppression, a half-fearful expectancy. Would his strength be sufficient for the scenes that would burst upon him? St. Pauls happiness, you may depend, was the simpler, purer of the two, as in the populous heathen city he found himself at liberty to tell his grand story, and felt around him a great field waiting for the good seed which the husbandman is eager to sow. With what buoyancy he would rise every morning, to resume his hopeful work; how peacefully he would fall asleep each night, thinking of the scenes which had cheered him, meditating on the proceedings for the morrow! And are we ever happier than in moments when scope is given us for doing what we have been craving to be able to do? The text suggests many thoughts.
I. An open door--what would we not give for it?
1. The feeling is something like the anxiety which a painter was under to put an open window or gateway in his picture which without that would be heavy; or a sick mans longing for the northern coolness and whispering breeze amidst the breathless, motionless evergreen forest of the South. We have a suffocating sense of fainting, of closeness, and ache to get out into fresher air and ampler space; but things hem us in from being and doing as we would. We can see perhaps a simpler, healthier, more rational life to live, and we inwardly desire to live it. There are interests that chain us down, and around us is a world of convention and custom through which we are unable to break. We are shut up to a daily round, so we are impatient. Have we not sighed thus at times for an open door to let us out?
2. Or, again, in earnest thought and contemplation we have felt that light was near; a faint glimmer has been descried by us. It seemed to us that only another step was required to carry us right into the light, and then just there we were stopped; on the verge of it, we were like a man groping about in a dark room for some article which he knows is very close by waiting to be grasped by his hand, but which he feels after in vain. Oh, for one further suggestion that would surely bring us to the land on the borders of which we are!
3. So once more, when wandering solitary in the summer fields, or in the silence of the lonely wood, watching the wondrous sunset at sea, has there never been a feeling with us that, however nature might be speaking to our minds and our hearts, there was something further, deeper, which it had to say--something for the communication of which only a little more faith, or delicacy, or peace in ourselves was needed?
II. But we have had the happy experience of the opening of the door. And how charming it was when the means of doing what we have been craving to do presented itself, and we were free to follow the hitherto thwarted impulses! Suddenly or gradually a new view of a subject has come as with the opening of a window, and the whole aspect of things has undergone change. Or we have stumbled upon facts with which we were previously acquainted which promised to elucidate for us that which was previously inextricable; or, getting hold of a principle, we bare found we could apply it for guidance in relation to matters in dealing with which before we have been dubious or confused. Or the reading of some book, maybe the intercourse with some person has given us a new vision of life.
III. There is such a thing as living always with a door open before us. As every man is his own strait gate, and the main difficulty in his way of improvement, so every man may be if he will his own open door. The secret of the difference between men in their growth is that some are receptive, and some are not. Some are standing every day to appropriate and assimilate all that meets them; and some are with souls more or less enclosed--angels walk by their thresholds and they do not ask them in; Jesus of Nazareth passes by and they are not about.
1. Cultivate at the height of every achievement an ingenuous discontent. Evermore say, This is good, yet is there better than this.
2. Try to discipline yourself to equanimity in the presence of petty troubles and grievances. Be very particular to have your mental chamber kept free from the disturbance of a host of shabby visitors. Many men live and die excluded from higher impressions, just because their avenues are all blocked.
3. Cultivate cheerfulness, resist gloom and despondency, than which nothing operates more to prevent appreciation and discernment of the good that offers itself. (S. A. Tipple.)
The opening of a great and effectual door
I. Imports--
1. Opportunity.
2. Success.
II. May occur in a most unlikely place.
III. Invites us to enter it.
IV. Usually awakens opposition.
V. Should inspire persistent courage and effort. (J. Lyth, D.D.)
A great and effectual door opened
Consider--
I. The great and effectual door opened.
1. A few years back and Ephesus was a door not open to Christ. The temple of Diana was open, and thronged with worshippers from all Asia and the world. The theatre was open, nourishing the worst passions of our fallen nature. Craftsmen had their open shops for the sale of models of the temple and images of the goddess. And yet Ephesus was a most important place, teeming with population, the capital of Proconsular Asia. How sad to see it a closed door! And is there no closed door in the present day? I speak not now of many a heathen city, but of those closed doors in the densely populated parishes of Christian England, where mammon has her open shops, licentiousness her open hells, infidelity her open halls. How distressing to see the door of the broad way wide open, and the many crowding through it, while the strait gate is, to numbers, virtually the closed door!
2. But see the great and effectual door opened! The apostle came and laboured there for the space of three years. It was in the course of this period that he saw a great door and effectual opened. In his opportunity of making known the gospel, and in its ready admission to the hearts of many. Some so ignorant that they had not so much as heard whether there were any Holy Ghost, became well-instructed Christians. Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them. So mightily grew the Word of God and prevailed. And the gospel and the grace of God is still the same. Wherever faithful men labour in the spirit of the apostle, using the same instrument, and depending on the same grace, they commonly soon see, with delight and thankfulness, a great and effectual door opening before them.
II. The many adversaries. When we engage in any work for God we are taught to expect difficulties. In seeking our own salvation we are exhorted to count the cost; in co-operating to save souls we must calculate on opposition. The adversaries are--General. Satan, the adversary of God and man, always in every place opposing the work of God, and mans natural corruption renders him an easy prey to the enemy seeking his destruction. See how the apostle reminded the Ephesians of both these in his Epistle.
2. Special.
(1) The Jews the embodiment of that self-righteousness which is one of our most potent adversaries to-day. Have not we often had to contend, not only with open ungodliness, but also with this subtle adversary, working in the hearts of the more decent yet formal professors of religion?
(2) The exorcists. So we must not be surprised if, when the true gospel is preached, there be counterfeits of the gospel circulated from corrupt motives by ungodly men.
(3) Demetrius and the craftsmen. These, seeing the open door, endeavoured to close it by violence And is there no such storm fast gathering around us in the present day?
III. What is the consequent duty?
1. To acknowledge the hand of God. Who but He, with His Divine hand, opened that great door and effectual in Ephesus? And the Fountain-head continues the same--inexhaustible and Divine. Hence all our hopes and consolations.
2. To press forward.
3. Where we see the great door and effectual opened, although there are many adversaries. The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force. It is not by an indolent wish, an occasional impulse of feeling, but by faithful perseverance, even unto death, that we shall have an entrance ministered to us abundantly, etc. (J. Hambleton, M. A.)
Opportunity
I. This word opportunity springs from an old root signifying at port, or in the harbour, suggestive of the lines: There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Thus we think of the trader watching the market, ready to pounce upon every opportunity that he may turn it to gold. Thousands fail in life through neglect of such chances. When the Blucher of opportunity presents itself, they have not pluck enough to charge, and so win their Waterloo. There are great national opportunities which present themselves once or twice in the lifetime of a country or community and never come again. Such an opportunity the Church of Rome had when some of her most faithful sons pointed out the sins and excesses which led to the Reformation. Such an opportunity the Church of England had in 1662, when she drove out the crown and flower of her ministerial ranks. Such an opportunity France had at the time of the Reformation of ridding herself of a blind superstition on the one hand, and a hopeless atheism on the other. Such an opportunity Jerusalem had nineteen centuries ago; but she spurned it, rejected it, and finally quenched it in the blood of the innocent (Luk_19:41-44).
II. There are opportunities which belong to certain periods of life. There is the season of youth. How full it is of opportunities--for mental improvement, forming good habits, moulding the character, determining on a future line of action. Use it, therefore, as the springtime which soon departeth, and wherein thou oughtest to plant and sow provisions for a long and happy life. Now if this be true with regard to the physical and mental, how much more with regard to the moral and the spiritual! Says the poet: Heaven lies near us in our infancy. The heart has not become stained and soiled; the conscience has not become seared and hardened. There are no hosannas so sweet to Christ as the hosannas of the young. Others, again, are becoming more advanced in years. Gradually they find themselves farther and farther away from the time when they were boys--they have reached the autumn of life. Oh, what opportunities they have had! But while men were busy here and there, the golden opportunity was gone. Consider our opportunities of usefulness. Take the home, e.g., what a splendid chance it presents to Christian parents of influencing their children goodwards at the very gateway of life! And to a certain extent the same thing holds good with regard to visitors. When Lord Peterborough lodged with Fenelon for a season, he said, on leaving, After this I shall be a Christian in spite of myself. Or possibly you occupy a position in some place of business, and one morning a child with a distressed look comes to say that father is very ill, and cannot come to-day. Next morning an intimation reaches you that he is dead. Instantly a still, small voice within whispers reproachfully, I have never in all these years spoken one word to this man about Divine things. I have lost an opportunity that will never return. Oh, there is a day coming when these lost opportunities will appear in a clearer light and with more terrible and startling distinctness. Because I have called and ye refused, etc. (Pro_1:24-28). Consequences are unpitying. So, then, as we have opportunity, let us work that which is good toward all men, and especially toward them that are of the household of the faith. (J. Dymond.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain 5–9. I will come unto you, etc. He outlines…
5–9. I will come unto you, etc. He outlines his plans. He probably wrote in the spring. He intends to visit the churches in Macedonia, and then, perhaps, winter at Corinth. This he did, spending three months (Acts 20:2, 3).
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain 1Co_16:5.—This arrangement set aside an earlier plan (2Co_1:16) to…
CRITICAL NOTES
1Co_16:5.—This arrangement set aside an earlier plan (2Co_1:16) to come direct to Corinth from Ephesus by ship, and thence to go to Macedonia. Now he will come to Corinth viâ Macedonia. This change of plan now announced occasioned the misconception and misrepresentation of 2Co_1:17, etc. The true reason was 2Co_1:23.
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1Co_16:5-6.—“I (only) pass through (not stay in) Macedonia; I shall perhaps stay, and perhaps even winter with you.” You.—Emphatic: “I want that to be your help to me: I want to have you do it.”
1Co_16:7. By the way.—I.e. merely as passing through Corinth; Corinth should be the “objective” of his journey “now,” as it was not in the earlier plan. No sure argument to be based on this “now” as if it meant that he had seen them en passant on some (unrecorded) visit, between has first, long one in Acts 18 and this proposed one.
1Co_16:8.—Then he is writing in Ephesus; probably in the Spring [Passover is perhaps about due, or just being celebrated, 1Co_5:7 (where see)]; by Pentecost navigation would be perfectly open.
1Co_16:9. Door.—Col_4:3; 2Co_2:12 (at Troas); Act_14:27; Rev_3:8, are worth comparison. “An opportunity great and already beginning to show fruit,” or “calling for effective utilisation.” Yet “many adversaries,” whose opposition culminated in the riot of Demetrius (Acts 19). Note, these are a motive to Paul not to fly, but to stay.
1Co_16:10. If Timothy come.—Read Act_19:21-22. But had he not been “sent specially, and with definite instruction?… The Apostle felt it quite possible that his messenger’s [who was sent viâ Macedonia] arrival might be delayed, and that, as appears really to have been the case, he might not at that time reach them at all. Timothy was … still in Macedonia when the Apostle wrote … 2Co_1:1” (Ellicott). Without fear.—Some years after this he was still a young man (1Ti_4:12). Ellicott protests a little against the usual inference from these passages, and from 2Ti_1:6-7; 2Ti_2:1, as being very precarious indeed, viz. that Timothy was gentle, or even timid. For more of Timothy, see Php_2:20; Php_2:22. The Lord.—Expounded as “of Christ” (Php_2:30).
1Co_16:11. Despise him.—Timothy is to see that he on his part does nothing which shall lead them to do so (1Ti_4:12). Stronger word here than there. The brethren.—Viz. those travelling with the money raised for the Relief Fund, and named or indicated in 2Co_8:18; 2Co_8:22-23 (Stanley). Or only his companion Erastus, with perhaps others (Act_19:22). I expect him.—I.e. on the supposition that he did reach Corinth.
1Co_16:12.—Stanley continues his reading of 1Co_16:11 by supposing that Titus only became the head of the mission after Apollos had excused himself from going; perhaps lest the self-styled, “Apollos” party should try to exploit him, to their advantage over their rivals. Apollos seems to be back again at Ephesus, after Act_19:1. See how happy the relations between him and Paul. The “will” is surely that of Apollos; not of God!
1Co_16:13-14.—“The whole duty of the Corinthian convert [summed up] in the trying times and amid the varied temptations in which this Epistle would find him” (Ellicott). (See homiletic treatment below.)
HOMILETIC ANALYSIS.—1Co_16:5-14
Three Contrasts.
A. “I will,” … “I do” (1Co_16:5), “I will not” (1Co_16:7)—“It may be” (1Co_16:6), “I trust,” “If the Lord permit” (1Co_16:7).
B. Timothy—Apollos (1Co_16:10-12).
C. “Be strong”—“All … with charity” (1Co_16:13-14).
A. A Christian man’s purposing.
I. Two minds, two wills, are working together in the ordering of Paul’s life.—A deep, a bottomless, problem of philosophy how this can be. In practice, the devout heart makes no difficulty. The difference between Bible histories and the history of our own times, or our own lives, is not that God is found more actively interposing in them than in ours, but that in them we are taken behind the scenes, so to speak, and permitted to see—where we usually must believe—Him at work. The Bible characters and histories are, as it were, dissected examples, that we may learn how to think of the ordinary examples, where the beating heart and the complex machinery are all hidden. We are to read them, and to learn how to look for, and to see, God in the newspaper, in the national, the personal, records of to-day. Bible stories, Bible lives, are by no means full of miracle. They are full of God; but not more full of God than are ours. In the Bible we see, in the case of men and in the case of nations, how God and man work together in weaving history on the loom of Time. If we look at the side on which man works at the pattern, it all seems his own, and he seems to work quite after his own mind and will. If we turn the fabric, as we always do in Scripture narrative, and look at the side where God is working upon His own pattern, we see the same events and incidents “showing through.” Every one is being woven into God’s own design; but they have a different colour and character. How man can work in perfect freedom, and yet God’s pattern be also wrought, is a problem which the Bible only “solves,” so far as is needful for practical purposes, by showing us in a few specimen cases both sides of the work. Paul brings the will and purpose of Christ still closer to his own when he writes: “I trust in the Lord,”—i.e. as a man whose whole life and its hopes and plans are not at all independent, but all of them “in the Lord,” I trust,—“that I myself shall come … shortly” (Php_2:24). Here Paul’s plans are not only subject to, but full of, “the Lord” Christ’s “permission.” All is Paul; all is Christ.
II. These facts of revelation and experience emerge:
1. Man proposes, God disposes. If Paul’s Master do not arrange for his short stay at Corinth, then, as he once found in those very regions, Paul plans and tries for an opening in vain (Act_16:6-8). There is no reason why Paul should not “propose,” no reason why he should not argue that the mind of his Master was that he should “remain at Ephesus until Pentecost,” drawing his inference from the very facts, that the Lord had “opened a door” which claimed to be entered, and that there were “many adversaries” being stirred up for the Gospel, whose opposition “needed” that Paul, the captain of the host, should himself be in that part of the fight. Men are most frequently left to learn the plan of God from such circumstances as these. But all needs God. [If, when Benaiah says “Amen,” the Lord God of Israel do not say “Amen” too, David appoints Solomon to be king in vain (1Ki_1:36). Man’s “Amen” is “May it be so”; God’s “Amen” is “It shall be so.”] Paul’s plans only succeed when they fall in with Christ’s plan. Men strive against God’s purposes in vain; without God they strive for their own plan in vain. “Men are architects of their own fortune,” and they are not. The plans of human builders must “pass His office.” If in wilfulness men persist, God willing or unwilling, they find that their edifice has no sure foundation; they can mix no cement for their work which will not crumble into utter weakness. The top stone can never be lifted into its place. If man’s will will not take God into its counsels, yet it cannot shut Him out of its work. That work will rise as He “permits,” and as far as He permits; and when He wills, the whole fabric of man’s plan will collapse into utter ruin. [And often the greatest mercy of a man’s life that it does!] Napoleon’s fall dated from the day when, on his way to Moscow, he turned away from the faithful remonstrance of good Queen Louise of Prussia with his bold defiance of God: “Madam, I propose and I dispose!”
2. Man should propose.—As above, no reason why Paul should not make the wisest arrangements, and draw the wisest conclusions, he was able. No man need say, “Whatever I do, God’s plan will be carried out; I will, I need, I can, do nothing.” Human effort is not so to be paralysed; the noblest natures have their own logic, which sweeps away such Turk-like, indolence-breeding fatalism. They often cannot give or get demonstration; they often cannot detect the fallacy of the fatalistic reasoning; but the nobler the man, the more certainly he will start up and say, “I must plan; God made me to plan. God help me! Yet He has also made me to help myself; I may hope that He will.” Prayerfully, submissively planned work for Christ may look for His blessing of success. [Remark Pro_16:3, “Commit thy works unto the Lord, and thy thoughts shall be established.” I.e. what men aimed at in their work shall be surely accomplished, even though perhaps by the frustrating of their own “works” altogether.] Christ will “permit” Paul’s plans; He will guide Paul in planning, so that his plans fall in with, and become part of, Christ’s larger plan and government of His Church and of the world.
3. In humble dependence upon God.—The humility will save from all fretting and chafing when Paul’s own plans are “revised” away altogether by the Lord’s superior will; and, still more, if it even be something set aside which we thought essential, humility will not simply bow to the inevitable, but will acquiesce in, and embrace, the Higher Will. The dependence will give hope and heart, when planning difficult tasks. Not left alone in either our purposes or our execution of them.
“Thou art not only to perform thy part,
But also mine; as when the league was writ,
Thou didst at once Thyself indite
And hold my hand, while I did write.”
—George Herbert.
B. Timothy and Apollos.—[Much good material in Dean Howson’s Scenes from the Life of St. Paul, chaps. 7, 8, “The Companions of St. Paul.”
I. Two types of worker and of character; “of worker” because “of character.”—As to Timothy, Howson sums up thus: “All this reveals to us a life of incessant activity and toil, and a character worthy of respect and affection. Not, indeed, that we need suppose that Timotheus was destitute of defects. From the repeated and emphatic injunctions to courage (1Ti_1:18; 1Ti_3:15; 1Ti_4:14; 1Ti_5:21; 1Ti_6:12), it seems not unlikely that there was something of timidity in his disposition [but see Critical Notes on 1Co_16:10], caused, not improbably, in some degree by his delicate health; and it is no unreasonable fancy which ascribes to him a certain softness of character, and, so to speak, a ‘feminine piety.’ Nor is it likely that this would be any hindrance to the continued and deep attachment which evidently subsisted between him and St. Paul; but rather the contrary. Even in common human friendship the stronger character often finds its consolation in drawing the weaker character close to itself.” In contrast with all this,—which must not be overpressed to Timothy’s disadvantage; he is a fine fellow,—Apollos does here seem to stand forth an example of something more “masculine.” Timothy needs that Paul should throw around his youth and his timidity the strong defence of his own plea for all consideration for him at Corinth; Apollos is a man parallel with Paul, whose judgment and will match themselves against the wish of Paul; whereas Paul’s wish is command enough for Timothy, whom he sends. Apollos has a mind of his own, and prefers his own time. Not, however, in the slightest sense as displaying that “independence” which is only pride goading on weakness to assert itself, or from anything but absolute harmony of mind and soul with Paul. The “refusal” to go argues a thorough loyalty to Paul on the part of Apollos. In Paul’s absence he had, quite innocently, given a name to a party antagonistic to Paul. For Paul’s sake, and for his own fair name’s sake, he would stand clear from these men, who, without shadow of warrant, used his name as the badge of their party. His presence at Corinth “at this time” seemed to him not advisable; the factious party should have no semblance, or show of sanction, such as might be, wrongfully, based upon his presence in Corinth just now. Under the circumstances Paul, in desiring to send him again to Corinth, shows how utterly without jealousy Paul was, and how full of generous trust in Apollos himself; whilst Apollos’ wish to be excused just now “shows a prudence and self-restraint and delicate consideration for” Paul which argues well for Apollos’ character. There is prudence in this “refusal” to set foot in Corinth just at this juncture. Altogether the suggestions of the few incidental remarks we may gather up as to Apollos, show us a very fine man, around whose name it is a great marvel that so few ecclesiastical legends have collected. [That he should be suggested as the writer of the Hebrews rests upon no surer foundation than this: The author’s turn of thought, and some occasional grammatical forms, as well as a somewhat rhetorical form about the letter, are said to be characteristically “Alexandrian,” and, of all Paul’s “school” of disciples, Apollos is the one man we happen to know who, coming from Alexandria, might be supposed to be Alexandrian in thought and style, “eloquent” as he was, and “mighty in the Scriptures.”] The practical suggestion is that Christ has use for every type of man and of mind in His Church. “Dependent ones” like Timothy, young and perhaps shrinking from conflict and friction, are not by any means useless. They win stronger hearts for themselves and then for their Master. There are many forms of labour, and many styles of “success.” The workers of other types, and on other lines, need to be as broad as Paul would have the Corinthians to be in their judgment of Timothy: “He worketh the work of the Lord, as I also do.” The men of stronger type find it difficult to appreciate such natures as need, like clinging plants, the strong support of a Paul, or his sheltering, appealing love; difficult not to “despise” them, as “poor creatures,” “unmanly,” and the like. They laugh at the “fear” which their own rough handling and rough judging cause, and are apt to crush and kill a tender spirit, intending no harm. The Timothys, when put to it, can be entrusted with difficult and responsible work at Ephesus or elsewhere (1Ti_1:3); and acquit themselves well by the grace of God “enabling them” (ib. 1Co_16:12), as He “enables” the Pauls, to hold their own and do their Master’s work, though they must handle older, “grave,” men (ib. 1Co_3:1-11), and even “unreasonable and wicked,” or “blasphemously” heretical ones (2Th_3:2; 1Ti_1:19-20). The very faculty of winning such tender affection as that which Timothy won and kept from Paul (2Ti_4:9-13; 2Ti_4:21) is a very valuable gift to the Christian worker, and opens hearts, and opens doors, where the Paul and the Apollos may not, or not so readily, enter. No shape or temper of tool comes amiss to the hand of the Divine Worker.
II. Paul revealed in his friendships.—
1. How broad his sympathies and his nature, to be able to attach to himself, and to understand and work with, and love, such a diversified group of friends as those we see round him in the Acts and Epistles. He must himself have been a many-sided man, offering many points of attachment, that such different styles of men always found in him a side where they could take hold and “catch on.” [May it be reverently suggested that the polygon of character, with these many sides, the more in the nobler and larger natures and lives, grows to the perfect circle—the polygon of an infinite number of sides—in the One Friend, in whom all men find a place, a side, where they touch and can grasp and can hold?] Men of such pronounced character as Paul sometimes pay the penalty of their very strength, in an utter incapacity to read, or work with, or care for, or be just to, any type but what approaches their own; and in consequence they have few friendships, though these are close and strong, if sometimes undemonstrative, and their life is spent in an isolation of greatness and strength. Paul could be strong enough, and could speak strongly enough (e.g. 1Co_16:22); he appreciated strength highly (e.g. 1Co_16:13); but he won to himself Lydias and Marys (Rom_16:6) and matrons like Rufus’s mother (ib. 1Co_16:13), and clinging natures like Timothy, and strong men like Apollos and Titus. [How like the rugged, yet so lovable Luther!]
2. A man’s friendships bring out his characteristics.—He is put to the test by his friendships. See whom a man chooses as his friends, see how he keeps them; you see a long way into the man. As we have found, a man is not at all of necessity simply mirrored and reproduced in his friendships; but he is revealed by them. To himself and to others they are a touchstone of character. See, then, how this foremost apostle is tenderly considerate for a young minister who needs encouragement, who should indeed be respected by himself, and by others, as a fellow-worker; who shall not, if he can help it, be treated with anything but respect. An old minister and his young colleague. See, as between him and Apollos, how utterly, apostle though he is, he holds aloof from anything like dictation. He claims no right to move men about in the field like so many pieces on a chess-board. He might perhaps have found Timothy acquiescent, if he had attempted to do so; Apollos would, perhaps, have resented it. As a fact, he has no thought of it with either of them. Timothy is “his son” in the Gospel; but in the work they are equals before their common Master. Paul was a wise master-builder before Apollos began to learn from Aquila and Priscilla the rudiments of the Christian “trade”; yet he respects, and bows to, the judgment and will of Apollos, and his own “great desire” is waived. How smoothly the work of God progresses when the workers, all round, are of this temper and style!
C. Strength and love.—(Cf. under 1Co_11:11, “The Man” and “the Woman.”)
I. Complementary graces.—
1. The verses might almost stand as a summary of the suggestions of B. Say to Timothy, “Watch; … stand fast; … be strong.” Say, perhaps to Apollos, certainly to Corinth, “All things … with charity.” A good rule is given earlier in the letter: “All … decently and in order” (1Co_14:40). This is as much better, larger, higher, as “love” is higher than “order.” Order good; but love will secure, if its working be perfect, all that is really of worth in “order”; the “order” of “love” is natural, necessary, inevitable, and sure. Strength, too, is good; but it needs clothing with love. Speaking architecturally, strength finds the construction in the Church building, love the ornament. Ornament without strength is collapse; “ornament your construction” is perfect art. Strong men! build lovingly; work lovingly; save men lovingly, if you can. [There is an evangelism that is hard. There is benevolence, aid to sickness and poverty, which is unsympathetic, mechanical, hard, and that unintentionally hurts where it means to help.] Loving men! be strong, “be men” (1Co_16:13, literally), be watchful. 1Co_16:13 is a soldierly verse, a campaigning verse, a verse for warriors. 1Co_16:14 would Christianise the spirit of Wordsworth’s lines:—
“Who, doomed to go in company with Pain
And Fear and Bloodshed, miserable train!
Turns his necessity to glorious gain;
In face of these doth exercise a power
Which is our human nature’s highest dower;
Contests them and subdues, transmutes, bereaves,
Of their bad influence, and their good receives;
By objects, which might force the soul to abate
Her feeling, rendered more compassionate;
Is placable—because occasions rise
So often that demand such sacrifice;
… more able to endure,
As more exposed to suffering and distress;
Thence, also, more alive to tenderness.”
—The Happy Warrior.
2. The controversial conflicts of the Church need that the fighting be done “with charity,” and, after the fight, nothing but “charity,” though both sides have “quitted themselves like men” against each other, “standing fast in the faith” as they each have apprehended it, “knowing,” all of them (together), only “in part” (1Co_13:9). But the very “charity” must be ready to fight (cf. 1Co_16:22); it must not be so “liberal” as to believe that “nothing is worth disputing about.” There are vital issues raised, from time to time; there have been “decisive battles in the history of the” kingdom of Christ; when love without strength would easily have become treasonable indifference.
II. Complementary counsels (1Co_16:13).—
1. “Watch,” “stand fast,” when there seems no fighting, and even no foe in sight. In the midst of the conflict, in the presence of the foe, “be strong,” “play the man.”
2. “Watchful; steadfast; strong;” a complete programme for the Christian soldier; [add “loving,” and it is a complete programme for the Christian life].
3. Watchful; there are many foes; the soldier’s peril is to fall asleep; all the camp are on sentry duty; every man, and not official sentries only, is told off to give the alarm of treason, or of subtle or open attack. Steadfast; as appreciating the significance of “The Faith,” the value of that Gospel for a lost world, which is its heart and burden and main content; as yourselves believers of strong faith in “The Faith” [which is a thing believed and only known or understood by believers. Faith is a condition (sine quâ non), without which knowledge is necessarily impossible]. Standing fast in days when, as on a memorable Sunday, June 18th, 1815, a line of British squares could do nothing but doggedly hold their ground through the long hours of waiting for Blücher’s new help. As Napoleon said of them, “How splendidly they fight; they don’t know that they are really beaten!”; so the “steadfast” Christian soldiers have many a time tenaciously held to a “Faith” which had been discredited by some of its very defenders [“not wise, or worth while, to attempt to sustain that old position”]; themselves have been forsaken by treason or fear; by all rule and reason definitely pronounced “beaten” in the judgment of the assailants; yet doggedly have “unreasonably” kept to their substantial position; until their tenacity has been vindicated and crowned by unexpected reinforcement raised up by their Great Lord, who is Himself “The Faith” and “The Truth”; unlooked-for help has many a time made the long struggle end in victory. All of which has its echoes and analogies in the struggle of the personal life to maintain its ground, e.g., in the workshop, full of sceptical and scoffing workmen, or in the school dormitory, full of teasing, mocking, or angry fellow-students. Strong, whether in watching or fighting; in experience and purpose; and (not least) strong because busy (1Co_15:58).
4. Watchful against subtle danger; steadfast against persistent attack; manly against “wise” assault; strong against many-sided strength of evil.
SEPARATE HOMILIES
1Co_16:9. An Opened Door.
I. Figure obvious enough in meaning.—Very curious accident that the phrase and the figure are always connected with this same Proconsular Asia.
1. In Rev_3:8 “an open door” is “set before” the Philadelphian Church. Persecution, poverty—whatever has shut up Philadelphian Church into a narrow field of life, are removed. There is escape from confinement in the figure. Whatever has shut them out from access to their heathen neighbourhood around is removed. There is entrance into a new sphere. Circumstances now favour. They are to go in and take possession, in His name Who has opened the door.
2. On Paul’s second missionary journey, it is said (Act_16:6-12) that, having passed through the central tableland of Galatia, and having come down to the coast, somewhat north of this Ephesus, he wished to open his commission in this Roman “Asia.” The Director of his course, however—the Holy Spirit—in some way forbade him. That door was shut. He turned away north-east, and “assayed to go into Bithynia.” But no! “The Spirit suffered him not.” The door is closed in that direction also. His path into new fields of labour lay another way, and he turned aside to Troas and waited. Then the way became clear. The door, the way, opened into Macedonia; into a Europe waiting for the Gospel.
II. In all such cases of providential leading it is to be remembered that the closed door is as really a part of God’s leading as the opened one.—
1. It is a real temptation—though there is an honourable side to the feeling—to a soul full of devotion to Christ, eager to put the fervour of devotion into concrete shape in some new activity in His cause; full also of sympathy and compassion for the souls and bodies of men and women for whom as yet Christ seems to have died in vain, and with a holy inventiveness and organising gift, ever fertile in new plans for doing something fresh for these souls and for Christ; to chafe when these plans are again and again put aside by insuperable difficulties, or when circumstances repeatedly make a hopeful commencement hopelessly abortive in its conclusion. To stand and see work that wants doing, souls that want saving, a world that needs Christ’s Gospel, and to be powerless to do anything; [to stand upon the shore and see the poor fellows drop off, one after another, from the frozen rigging of the wrecked vessel into the surging waves; no open door of escape for them, and no open door of help for those who stand and watch, because there is no boat or rescue apparatus; to stand in powerless idleness and watch the burning house; or the like illustration;] is a sharp trial to an eager, devoted, capable Christian worker. No doubt many an obstacle may be removed which at first seems insuperable. Prayer, tact, patience, work, will generally open a door. But not always. Asia and Bithynia are closed even to the eager heart of a Paul. For that journey. Now “Asia,” Ephesus, is open. Then Philippi, Berœa, Thessalonica, Athens, Corinth,—all needed him first. Christ had a larger plan of campaign than even Paul saw in Acts 16. The closed door was just then the will of Paul’s Lord.
2. To grasp this will keep the spirit of the eager, devoted worker in peace.—Look at Php_1:12-18; Php_1:21. To a man like Paul, for years the forefront evangelist of the Christian Church, and of a zeal burning, as steadily as intensely, beyond that of most, it must have been no small trial to have been, for two years at least, in confinement in Rome, “reduced to” writing letters to friends and Churches, to conversation and discussion with “callers” and inquirers; to know, moreover, that the closing of the door upon himself was being eagerly made the opportunity of teachers who “preached Christ” indeed, but in a presentation which was not “his Gospel” (2Ti_2:8; Rom_2:16), and which he regarded as “the word of God adulterated” (2Co_2:17); to remember also that this eager and quickened activity of theirs was in a large degree prompted by no kindly feeling towards himself, but rather was triumphing in having a clear field with him out of the way [every “dog” (1Co_3:2) of them hoping that his bark would irritate the caged lion, behind his closed door]. Yet he is not irritated. If the door close for him, and open for them,—well, any way men are hearing of Christ who would not otherwise hear of Him at all. “I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice!” And as to any personal irritation, where should that come in? “To me to live is—not Paul but—Christ.” Paul is kept patient within a closed door.
3. There are closed doors in the personal life.—Most perplexing to the understanding; most trying to faith. Every step of the path has been committed to God’s guiding wisdom and love; not a step without prayerful “consultation” with the Father. The way seems to clear. Door after door opens until—one stands closed. Indeed, it looks as if there were no door at all, to be closed or opened. The way that seemed so clear has ended in an impasse, a cul de sac. There appears nothing to be done except to retrace some steps, or many, and try down some other path. But what then of all the lost time? What of all the “lost” prayer? What of all the way that seemed so clearly opened up to the last point? The full answer can many a time never be given; but the triumph of faith is to hold doggedly to the conviction that God even in such a case has made no false move nor permitted a false start, but rather that He has some larger plan into which this journey down a by-lane that leads to nowhere, enters as a needful and wise detail. [We were perhaps “shunted on to a siding” whilst danger passed, or whilst some arrangements for our after-journey were being made, on what is after all the main line of His system for our life.] The closed door has many and many-sided purposes in God’s plan, and in men’s training. Sometimes the development of the after-path justifies the doggedly tenacious faith which, by grace, “would not” doubt. Men see and praise God by-and-by for many a closed door.
III. The open door is:
1. A mercy to be thankful for;
2. A call to be responded to;
3. A responsibility to be assumed in Divine strength.
1. A mercy not only to the world or to the neighbourhood waiting to be evangelised, sitting in darkness and hunger waiting for the Light and the Bread, but also to the Church itself and its workers, for the sake of the effect upon their own life. No greater calamity could happen to a Church, or to a worker, than that they should settle down into easy contentment with what has been already accomplished, not attempting to do more than retain ground already—perhaps by a more eager generation in the past—won and cultivated. Such satisfaction is next door to stagnation. Such stagnation is next door to death. Let a Church, or the individual, lose the spirit of enterprise, the élan which carries them forward, exploring for new “opened doors”; let (per impossibile) the Head of the Church open none, or entrust them with none; the end of that Church would not be far off. O. W. Holmes lays his hand on a true trait of genius,—“it is always breaking out in fresh places.” The Church could have no greater calamity happening to it than that it should have no inner impulse with a sanctified “genius” to break out in fresh places, or should be condemned to beat in vain against closed doors in every direction. For not only are the habit and spirit of enterprise kept alive by open doors, but hope. It is easy, fatally easy, for Israel with an evil contentment to build its own city, under the very walls of a Jerusalem held by Jebusites into whose fastness there seemed no open door, and which seemed to leave no hope of its being captured for God. An open door keeps alive that hopefulness of spirit without which no great things will ever be accomplished for the work of God. Quite obvious to add that the Church which has been praying and waiting for an opened door, praises its Great Head with all fulness of thanksgiving, when at last, and perhaps suddenly, “the door is opened.”
2. A call to enter.—
(1) “Know ye that Ramoth in Gilead is ours, and we be still and take it not out of the hand of Syria?” Ahab’s spirit of enterprise may be serviceably pondered. “Ephesus is ours! Ephesus is Christ’s! It is in the hands of His enemies! The door is opened! The opening is a call!” Some morning the ice, which for weary months has shut in as with the grip of death the vessel of the Arctic explorers, is seen to be stirring and heaving and splitting with the swell of a warmer current or the first touch of the returning summer. How in an instant orders are given to make ready to push into the opening channel through the enclosing ice-floes! The occupations, work or play, which have beguiled the long weeks and the continuous night of the Arctic winter, are thrust aside. The opened door through the ice is a call. [Queen Elizabeth once kept Raleigh dallying about her at Greenwich, until one morning the wind, for which in part he had been waiting, to carry him out of the Thames turned down stream. The Queen would have kept him for another day. “Madam, the breeze commands me away!” The opened, door into the wide sea and the wide world, was an imperative call to set sail and go.]
(2) Christ calls by opened doors. It is the most frequent fashion in which to-day His voice is made to reach His Church. It is not to be denied that special guidance is sometimes directly given, by the visions of “men of Macedonia,” for example. The success has now and again vindicated the leading of a dream that showed “an open door.” Some who have lived in special nearness to God, and in close touch with His Spirit’s least intimations, have proved to be rightly guided by strong impressions that doors were opening. [Paul’s experiences in Act_16:6-8 would be more definite and decisive than these.] But, ordinarily, the sanctified good sense and the consecrated judgment must co-operate with the look of circumstances, to discover the will and way of Christ. And “the door” which commends itself as “opened” to the sound, sanctified judgment; the circumstances which look so promising and so probably right;—in these the Lord of the Church will ordinarily indicate His will, and through these utter His “call.” [When Saul left Samuel, three special foreannounced signs should be given him, tokens to assure him that so far he was in the way of God for his life. But after that, no more signs, no more special, miraculously announced tokens for guidance. His own sense and the opening of events were to be his guidance: “Do thou as occasion serveth thee; for God is with thee” (1Sa_10:7).] “Occasion,” as Samuel called it; the “opened door,” as Paul calls it,—these are generally the voice and call of God.
3. A responsibility to be assumed.—
(1) From the “opened door” at Ephesus, Paul could not, dared not, turn away, even to push forward to Corinth or Jerusalem. He was urgently wanted there, no doubt, but he was wanted at Ephesus. It was at Ephesus where “the door was opened.” Ephesus was his immediate responsibility. “To do one thing at a time” is an old and true recipe for accomplishing great things, great at least in amount, in a busy life. To attempt one, whilst harassed by the “claims” of two or a dozen others, is ruin to all steady application, or thoroughness of labour, or peace of heart; and without these the thing in hand is only half done or ill done. Do “open doors,” do the claims of opportunities, in the deepest truth of the matter, ever compete? To the man who is going forward, doing “what his hand finds to do,” the nearest first, then the next, and the next, do claims ever really “clash”? The Christian man, or the Church, is responsible only for the door opened (as Paul says) “to me”; the door which is next him. No need to be harassed, diverted, divided, flurried, distressed, about other open doors, however urgently clamorous may seem their claims. The Lord “who openeth” (Rev_3:7) “doors” will care for those. The man, the Church, for whom each of these is opened, is standing near it, with the same responsibility for entering through his own.
(2) This responsibility for one’s own “door” is to be remembered. Thankful that one need only be concerned with that, yet mindful that one ought to be concerned with that. The worker, the work, the door between them closed; then, the door opens. Paul’s argument with himself was, “assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us, for to preach the Gospel unto them” (Act_16:10). And we might emphasise “us”; “us, and no other workers.” There is an argument, a call, a responsibility, upon the man before whom “the door opens.” He may not shirk it in indolence, or fear; nor may he in a diffidence of himself which logically would issue in charging the Lord of the Workers with having chosen the wrong man, or, at least, not the best, seek to find somebody “better fitted than” himself to enter in and do the work. He has it to do. He can do it; he can be “made able” (2Co_3:6).
(3) In dependence upon Divine equipment and aid. There is fighting to be done inside the door: “Many adversaries.” [Yet “shall such a man as” Paul “flee”? (Neh_6:11). No; indeed, it is to him an added reason for staying longer at Ephesus. The captain must be found where the fight is thickest. He has had his taste of it already, like a man “fighting wild beasts” in the arena (1Co_15:32).] All entering in to open doors is with something of difficulty, something of danger. Jabez asks that his “coast” may be “enlarged”; but enlargement to an early settler in Canaan in his days meant dispossessing Canaanite occupiers by war. “Oh that Thou wouldst keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me!” (1Ch_4:10). Never yet was an opportunity utilised without hard work. And the best workers best know their own insufficiency. Look within, and who will enter an opened door? Look up, and who may not? “Let us go up at once, and possess, … for we are well able; … the Lord is with us; fear them not” (Num_13:30; Num_14:9). “But who goeth a warfare,” or entereth an open door, “at his own charges?” (1Co_9:7). The call puts responsibility upon the man; but it gives him a claim upon God. He Who calls, and Who opens the door, knows Who must “find the wherewithal,” if the opening is to be entered and the work to be taken in hand. He knows that He will need to “see the workers through” with it. It is upon that understanding, upon that assumption, that He calls by the “opened door.” He calls those “who have no might,” absolutely none at all of their own, that in them He may, as He must, “increase strength” and wisdom (Isa_40:29). “Suppose I enter the door, what next? And if the work develop upon my hands, what then? Perhaps I may break down, or may be so placed that I really am at the end of my resources, and at my wits’ end; how then?” “Go in at the open door. Leave the rest. Be thankful for the pioneer’s honour put upon you. Let the Master supply all the need of the ‘next’ and the ‘then.’ ”
1Co_16:9. A Great Door and Effectual; Many Adversaries.—[Many occasions in the personal life of the Christian man when these words rush into his memory as exactly descriptive of his case and its conditions. No mere “happy adaptation” of language this; a real, closely connected analogy. The extension and establishment of the kingdom of God within the individual run on lines perfectly parallel with those which are its characteristics in the case of the world. In the Johannean (and Pauline) sense, there is a little “world” within the man which is part of that larger “world” outside, which has its “Prince” (Joh_16:11), etc., who, whether within or without, is to be “judged and cast out” by the holy encroachment of the power of the kingdom of light. In both campaigns, in both fields,—the world-wide and racial, or the narrower and individual,—there are crises of opportunity for advance and growth and victory and extension, “opened doors,” to enter into which, however, means the arousing and the opposition of “many adversaries.” Every Christian understands how, beneath the happy appropriateness of the language to his case, there is a real analogy, a real unity, of fact. Taking them in the personal, narrower application, let it remind of the “opened doors” of removed hindrance, of favouring circumstances, of inviting opportunity, for occupying some new ground in the heritage of God’s new Israel, holiness.]
I. The privilege of being brought up to an opened door.—
1. Recall days when, with all the suddenness of a revelation, or the opening of a door in a blank wall, and with unusual depth of impression, the desirability, and necessity, of higher religious attainment, of closer walk with God, stand clear before the vision of the heart. Like Moses, led up to where the whole Canaan of God’s “rest for His people” (Hebrews 3, 4) lay spread out attractively before the eyes, possibilities of blessing and holiness stretching away in “length and breadth” (Eph_3:18), as never before seen; unlike Moses, led up to see a land waiting for conquest and occupation. Or it is rather the “opened door” of the “banqueting house” (Son_2:4), on whose table are spread in tempting array the “feast of fat things,” etc. (Isa_25:6), for the children of God’s family; the Christian is led up to the threshold and is bidden enter and sit down and “taste as well as see” (Psa_34:8). At such times the very presence of sinful tempers and inclinations becomes unusually painful; themselves become unusually hateful; the standard higher than ever; holiness, full and perfect, more desirable than ever.
2. A privilege; for no man seeks more grace with any heartiness or hope, merely because he ought; driven to an “opened door” by a sense of duty. He who is led up to it by a quickened desire, is not far from entrance and possession of what lies within. God is in the quickening of desire; the quickening is therefore a pledge of further blessing. A privilege, and a mercy, remembering how often, led thus far, the soul has turned away from the door and the feast in half indifference, saying great things of the feast and of the bounty of the Provider, but not caring enough about it to enter and partake; till the quickened desire, imperfect as it was, died away. A mercy, remembering how eagerly other things are pursued, other open doors are entered, until Divine things, thus dishonoured and disregarded, are crowded out of thought and heart. It is favour worthy of His love when by an “opened door” attention is again arrested, desire revived, hope excited.
3. No greater calamity could occur than a fatal satisfaction with present religious position and status; no sorer curse from the “grieved” Spirit of God than that the heart should be suffered to lower the standard into adjustment to the facts, or should never catch sight of a larger life inviting the soul through the “opened door.”
II. The responsibility for entering thus created.—
1. Privilege and responsibility always go together. To accept the privilege means to accept and fulfil all that belongs to it. Fulfil no conditions, discharge no responsibility, forfeit all privilege! “A man will not work? Then neither shall he eat!” (2Th_3:10). (As true of the secular life as of the spiritual.) Do nothing for God; get nothing from God! But the responsibility may be faced cheerfully. Three things always linked together: a promise; a call to seek for its fulfilment; a further promise of grace to obey the call. The door shall always be an “effectual door” to the man who endeavours to enter.
2. There is the responsibility of an indebtedness to Christ. When you have been contriving and saving and denying yourself, and giving time and labour and money to procure a present for one you love; if it is received with profusely worded, but evidently formal, thanks, if it is never used, but put away, only to be now and then decently taken out and ‘admired’ and your ‘great kindness’ again extolled; do you like it? What did it cost Christ to secure for you the possibilities which offer themselves through the “door” which “opened” so suddenly, so invitingly, as you were reading, or meditating, or were on your knees? Ought you not to enter?
3. If, then, the Spirit of God shows some new and higher standard of Christian living, spreads out some new breadth of Christian privilege, bringing it near, laying its desirableness upon the heart, filling with desire for it; that is “an opened door” into which it is a duty and responsibility to enter and labour, or fight, or enjoy. “If ye know …, happy … if ye do” (Joh_13:17). Heavy the responsibility of all new knowledge, if ye “do” not! Indeed, heavy the condemnation of “an opened door” refused; the blood ceases to cleanse from guilt, if we walk not in all the light—much or little—that we have (1Jn_1:7).
III. Many adversaries.—
1. The Self desires, and does not desire, to enter. [Said “Rabbi” Duncan: “When C. Malan said to me, on a never-to-be-forgotten day, ‘You have got God’s word in your mouth,’ I felt as if a flash of spiritual electricity had then passed through me. But the old nature asserted itself right in the face of that word, and refused for a while to receive the death-wound.… Now that must not be an infrequent experience. The shock when all that is within rises up and refuses to be slain by the only bloodless Conqueror, till at length the soul yields, and dies that it may live.… I was conscious of a revulsion against my renovation” (Colloquia Peripatetica, 77). The form of illustration is different, but the truth is the same, viz.] the man’s indolent, easy-going, self-loving, sin-loving, man-fearing self is the first great “adversary” and hindrance to his entering Christ’s “opened door.”
2. Sometimes there are conditions to be fulfilled which seem arrayed as “adversaries,” because the indolent, or reluctant, or unbelieving heart makes them difficulties. God can only forgive, ready as He is (Neh_9:17), upon conditions; man’s heart is not ready to fulfil the conditions. The “opened door” is, in God’s desire and intention, to be entered at once; but, on man’s part, much must often be done, something laid aside or given up; and the natural heart creates a difficulty, makes itself an “adversary.”
3. The adversaries will sometimes be literal human opponents. To enter into, and possess, and exhibit the living enjoyment of, a larger, broader, brighter, undoubting, victorious Christian life, will arouse to scorn or displeasure or harassing controversy many average or minimum Christians, of whom such a life is by its inevitable comparison an implicit condemnation. The Great Adversary of the kingdom of God will not willingly see, not only a soul escaping into liberty through “an opened, door,” but a soul passing into a larger liberty and fulness of life through “an opened door” of opportunity and promise and hope.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain But I will come unto you, when I shall…
But I will come unto you, when I shall have passed through Macedonia; for I [purpose to] pass through Macedonia ;
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain Paul’s proposed visit to Corinth:
Paul’s proposed visit to Corinth:
v. 5. Now I will come unto you when I shall pass through Macedonia; for I do pass through Macedonia.
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v. 6. And it may be that I will abide, yea, and winter with you, that ye may bring me on my journey whithersoever I go.
v. 7. For I will not see you now by the way; but I trust to tarry a while with you, if the Lord permit.
v. 8. But I will tarry at Ephesus until Pentecost.
v. 9. For a great door, and effectual, is opened unto me, and there are many adversaries.
v. 10. Now if Timotheus come, see that he may be with you without fear; for he worketh the work of the Lord, as I also do.
v. 11. Let no man, therefore, despise him; but conduct him forth in peace that he may come unto me; for I look for him with the brethren.
v. 12. As touching our brother Apollos, I greatly desired him to come unto you with the brethren; but his will was not at all to come at this time; but he will come when he shall have convenient time.
Paul’s former plan seems to have been to go to Corinth first, and then to travel northward into Macedonia. He still had the intention of visiting them, but only after making a missionary journey through Macedonia, traveling over the entire region. As a matter of fact, this evangelistic tour, as Paul indicates, occupied a large part of the summer and the autumn, for he penetrated beyond Macedonia, into Illyria, Rom 15:19, which brought him to Corinth not much before the winter. If it was possible, if he could so arrange, Paul wanted to remain in Corinth the entire winter, remaining in the metropolis instead of touring the province, and expecting, in turn, to be accompanied by a delegation from them, that they may send him forward wheresoever he may go, probably, though not certainly, to Jerusalem. Note how carefully the apostle expresses himself with regard to his plans, since they were entirely in God’s hands, and how tactfully he addresses the Corinthians, to retain their good will and not to appear domineering: For I would not see you now, merely in passing; he felt that a flying visit would not be acceptable. He rather hoped to stay some length of time with them if the Lord would permit. It is the language of a Christian that places everything into the hands of God at all times.
Paul frankly tells the Corinthians why he does not start on his proposed journey at once: But I will tarry, stay on, in Ephesus until Pentecost. At the time when he wrote this letter, it may have been near Easter. He felt that he must remain in Asia for a matter of some two months: For a door is opened to me, great and effectual, and many adversaries there are. The Lord had opened a great door to the Gospel, the Lord had made many hearts willing to listen to the great truths of salvation; and this wide open door promised much, the influence of the Gospel was spreading. Incidentally, however, there were many enemies. Act 19:1-41, as the tumult soon after showed, which made the most earnest application on the part of the apostle necessary. And as a faithful shepherd he would not desert his post at the time of danger, when his presence was most urgently needed.
The apostle adds a few words, at this point, with regard to Timothy and Apollos. As he, upon another occasion, admonished his young helper not to permit any one to despise his youth, 1Ti 4:12, so he here warns the congregation not to think lightly of Timothy on account of his youth. Timothy and Erastus were sent on a mission to Macedonia, or they may have been bearers of this letter, Act 19:21-22. Upon his arrival, therefore, the Corinthians should see to it that Timothy might be with them without fear, that he could attend to the work of his calling among them without the depression caused by supercilious treatment on the part of the congregation. For, as Paul says, he was working the work of the Lord, he was engaged in carrying forward the ministry of the Gospel as was the apostle himself. No one, then, should set him at naught, pretending to say that he did not possess full authority from God to do the work of an evangelist. They should rather, after he has performed the work entrusted to him, send him forward in peace, dismiss him peacefully, without annoyance, with kindly affection. They should remember that Paul was waiting for Timothy and the brethren that were with him, expecting their return to Ephesus before he left there. As for Apollos, who had labored in Corinth with such signal success, Paul had urged him most earnestly to make the journey to Corinth with the brethren; he had had no reluctance about seeing him go, but had perfect confidence in him. Apollos, however, who at that time must have been in Ephesus, would not be persuaded; it was altogether contrary to his will that he should come now. But his intention was to come as soon as there was a good opportunity. With the situation in Corinth such as it was, he may not have felt much like becoming involved in the difficulties, or other circumstances or engagements were holding him back.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 you may help me on my journey
you may help me on my journey
This means they might give Paul money or other things he needs so that he and his ministry team could continue to travel.
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translationWords
Macedonia
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 16:5 Paul had traveled through Macedonia, a Roman province…
16:5 Paul had traveled through Macedonia, a Roman province in the northern region of Greece, on his second missionary journey (Acts 15:36–18:22). • planning to travel through Macedonia: See Acts 19:21; 20:1-3.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.