Wednesday
Wednesday
Paul’s Travel Plans
I hope to spend some time with you, if the Lord permits. But I will stay on at Ephesus until Pentecost.
1 Corinthians 16:7–8
Paul is in Ephesus, the capital of Asia, but intends to travel through Macedonia to Corinth and then hopes to take the collection money to Jerusalem. This journey is at least thirteen hundred miles as the crow flies and considerably more by ship.
Notice that the apostle made his plans in two complementary ways. On the one hand, all his plans were subject to the will and purpose of God. His conditional clause “if the Lord permits” was not the artificial addition of the words “God willing” to every sentence but a genuine submission of his plans to Christ. On the other hand, in making plans, Paul used his common sense and took into consideration all relevant circumstances. For example, he wanted to go to Jerusalem because of the symbolic importance of the gift he would take with him. On his way he would like to spend adequate time (winter) in Corinth, seeking to bring peace to a divided church and waiting until winter storms would end and make the sea navigable again. On his way to Corinth he planned to pass through Macedonia, visiting Philippi, Thessalonica, and Berea. Meanwhile, he wanted to stay in Ephesus until Pentecost (about June), partly because “a great door for effective work” (v. 9) had opened for him (in the hall of Tyrannus) and partly because many were opposing him. Thus each stage of his journey had reasons. He would spend spring in Ephesus, summer in Macedonia, and autumn and winter in Corinth, sailing for Jerusalem the following spring. It is impressive that Paul handled his travel plans by a judicious combination of divine guidance and common sense.
The lesson we learn from 1 Corinthians 16 is that all life belongs to God, and that nothing is outside the sphere of his interest. Dualism, or the divorce of things sacred from things secular, has been a disastrous tendency throughout church history. The apostle Paul was emphatically not guilty of it. In 1 Corinthians 15 he handled sublime resurrection truth, while in chapter 16 he handled everyday affairs. He lived in both worlds simultaneously.
For further reading: 1 Corinthians 16:1–9