CRITICAL NOTES
1 Corinthians 16:5.—This arrangement set aside an earlier plan (2 Corinthians 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 2 Corinthians 1:17, etc. The true reason was 2 Corinthians 1:23.
1 Corinthians 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.”
1 Corinthians 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.
1 Corinthians 16:8.—Then he is writing in Ephesus; probably in the Spring [Passover is perhaps about due, or just being celebrated, 1 Corinthians 5:7 (where see)]; by Pentecost navigation would be perfectly open.
1 Corinthians 16:9. Door.— Colossians 4:3; 2 Corinthians 2:12 (at Troas); Acts 14:27; Revelation 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.
1 Corinthians 16:10. If Timothy come.—Read Acts 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 … 2 Corinthians 1:1” (Ellicott). Without fear.—Some years after this he was still a young man (1 Timothy 4:12). Ellicott protests a little against the usual inference from these passages, and from 2 Timothy 1:6-7; 2 Timothy 2:1, as being very precarious indeed, viz. that Timothy was gentle, or even timid. For more of Timothy, see Philippians 2:20; Philippians 2:22. The Lord.—Expounded as “of Christ” (Philippians 2:30).
1 Corinthians 16:11. Despise him.—Timothy is to see that he on his part does nothing which shall lead them to do so (1 Timothy 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 2 Corinthians 8:18; 2 Corinthians 8:22-23 (Stanley). Or only his companion Erastus, with perhaps others (Acts 19:22). I expect him.—I.e. on the supposition that he did reach Corinth.
1 Corinthians 16:12.—Stanley continues his reading of 1 Corinthians 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 Acts 19:1. See how happy the relations between him and Paul. The “will” is surely that of Apollos; not of God!
1 Corinthians 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.— 1 Corinthians 16:5-14
Three Contrasts.
A. “I will,” … “I do” (1 Corinthians 16:5), “I will not” (1 Corinthians 16:7)—“It may be” (1 Corinthians 16:6), “I trust,” “If the Lord permit” (1 Corinthians 16:7).
B. Timothy—Apollos (1 Corinthians 16:10-12).
C. “Be strong”—“All … with charity” (1 Corinthians 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” (Philippians 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 (Acts 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 (1 Kings 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 Proverbs 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 (1 Timothy 1:18; 1 Timothy 3:15; 1 Timothy 4:14; 1 Timothy 5:21; 1 Timothy 6:12), it seems not unlikely that there was something of timidity in his disposition [but see Critical Notes on 1 Corinthians 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 (1 Timothy 1:3); and acquit themselves well by the grace of God “enabling them” (ib. 1 Corinthians 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. 1 Corinthians 3:1-11), and even “unreasonable and wicked,” or “blasphemously” heretical ones (2 Thessalonians 3:2; 1 Timothy 1:19-20). The very faculty of winning such tender affection as that which Timothy won and kept from Paul (2 Timothy 4:9-13; 2 Timothy 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. 1 Corinthians 16:22); he appreciated strength highly (e.g. 1 Corinthians 16:13); but he won to himself Lydias and Marys (Romans 16:6) and matrons like Rufus’s mother (ib. 1 Corinthians 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 1 Corinthians 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” (1 Corinthians 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” (1 Corinthians 16:13, literally), be watchful. 1 Corinthians 16:13 is a soldierly verse, a campaigning verse, a verse for warriors. 1 Corinthians 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” (1 Corinthians 13:9). But the very “charity” must be ready to fight (cf. 1 Corinthians 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 (1 Corinthians 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 (1 Corinthians 15:58).
4. Watchful against subtle danger; steadfast against persistent attack; manly against “wise” assault; strong against many-sided strength of evil.
SEPARATE HOMILIES
1 Corinthians 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 Revelation 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 (Acts 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 Philippians 1:12-18; Philippians 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” (2 Timothy 2:8; Romans 2:16), and which he regarded as “the word of God adulterated” (2 Corinthians 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” (1 Corinthians 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 Acts 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” (1 Samuel 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” (Revelation 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” (Acts 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” (2 Corinthians 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”? (Nehemiah 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 (1 Corinthians 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!” (1 Chronicles 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” (Numbers 13:30; Numbers 14:9). “But who goeth a warfare,” or entereth an open door, “at his own charges?” (1 Corinthians 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 (Isaiah 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.’ ”
1 Corinthians 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” (John 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” (Ephesians 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” (Song of Solomon 2:4), on whose table are spread in tempting array the “feast of fat things,” etc. (Isaiah 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” (Psalms 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!” (2 Thessalonians 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” (John 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 (1 John 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 (Nehemiah 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.