B. Paul’s plans (16:5–9)
B. Paul’s plans (16:5–9)
Paul’s movements are tentative. But he wants his friends to know that he plans to stay with them, perhaps even to spend a whole winter with them. But he cannot let his projected visit take him away from Ephesus until his work there is finished.
5. Paul has foreshadowed a visit to Corinth (4:19), and has intimated that there were some there who thought that he would not come (see note on 4:18). Now he says firmly, I will come to you, and places the time of his visit as After I go through Macedonia. After is the indefinite hotan (‘whenever’) once more. He does not know when this will be. Go through looks like a systematic tour of the various Macedonian churches. The addition, for I will be going through Macedonia, seems to show that this part of the plan was new to the Corinthians. They evidently knew that he was planning to visit them (even if some of them said that he would never make it). But they had not known of Paul’s plan for Macedonia. Now he tells them what he hopes to do, and they can see just where his visit to their own city fits in. His use of the present tense for future action is not uncommon; it lends an air of greater definiteness to the plan.
6. Perhaps (tychon) shows the uncertainty of the rest of the apostle’s movements. Paul is not committing himself. But he would like his visit to Corinth to be more than the passing visit that is all that the Macedonian churches can expect (that is the force of his verb ‘go through’). You is emphatic; it contrasts the Corinthians with the Macedonians. At Corinth Paul may well stay (katamenō), and even pass the whole of winter (when travelling was normally suspended in the ancient world). This would give the Corinthians the opportunity of ‘bringing him on his journey’, i.e. providing such things as he had need of for the way. Once again you is emphatic: ‘that you may be the ones to bring me …’ Wherever I go reflects Paul’s uncertainty about his destination. He was clear about his plan to visit Macedonia, then go to Corinth; but from that point on he had no such firm intentions. It is worth noticing that, while Paul evidently had to change his plans more than once, and was accused of fickleness accordingly (2 Cor. 1:15ff.), the plan outlined here was the plan eventually adopted: he went from Ephesus to Macedonia, then to Greece, where he stayed three months (Acts 20:1–3).
7. Paul reiterates that he did not want to make only a passing visit to Corinth. For the third time his you is emphatic. He wants to spend time with these friends. He adds the qualification if the Lord permits (cf. 4:19; Acts 18:21; Heb. 6:3; Jas 4:13–15). He is the Lord’s servant. He must go where the Lord wills. All his plans must therefore be subject to the proviso (expressed or not) that the Lord may intervene and direct him elsewhere.
8–9. But his hopes of seeing the Grecian churches must be deferred. Paul’s immediate task is at Ephesus, and it will not be finished before Pentecost. He speaks of ‘a great and effectual door’, as being open to him, where ‘effectual’ is an unusual adjective to qualify a noun like door; NIV gives the sense of it, a great door for effective work. Has opened is the perfect tense; the door ‘stands open’. There is the thought of a continuing opportunity. We do not expect to find a reference to many who oppose me in such a connection. Paul’s abrupt reference to them reminds us that the Christian is not usually left to pursue his work unhindered. It is part of the conditions under which we serve God that when we have great opportunities of service we have also serious difficulties. Overcoming opposition is part of the opportunity. Acts 19 shows how great were Paul’s adversaries at Ephesus.