1 Corinthians 16:9 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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1 Corinthians 16:9

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On another occasion, the apostle tells us that a door was opened to him at Troas to preach the gospel – he doesn’t say it was a great door, or an effectual door, but it was a door of opportunity – but he didn't take it. He didn't take it, because they had lost Titus. Where was he? He was due to arrive, but he had not come. Maybe he is in trouble or in need. A sudden priority interrupted. I must seek out Titus. So something else took place. But here it is ‘a great door’, so it really does influence him at Ephesus, ‘and effectual.’ In other words, the door was already open, and souls are being saved, and his fellow worker Apollos, and Timothy also, and others were there, and great things were happening in Ephesus, during that three-year ministry there. There were obviously conspicuous opportunities for the preaching of the gospel. Somehow in Ephesus, the people in the city were beginning to react in a remarkable way. There was a yet greater readiness to listen, and the apostle sensed it. The gatherings were being swollen with people attending. It was a remarkable season: there will be much to do, and the exhausted apostle has got to work all the harder; and so have his helpers. Perhaps it would be a little more accurate to say, ‘a great door of activity’; that is more what the Greek indicates. Effectual it would be, that is included. There was a great opportunity, and it was clear that God was working and moving in hearts. But this is a door of activity. There is going to be strenuous labouring in the city, for the Gospel to go across. There is going to be great opposition; the apostle will come to this. But it is a door of activity.‘And there are many adversaries.’ Yes indeed, there is always opposition. There in Ephesus his opposition was no doubt a resurgence of the Diana worshippers and those silversmiths and others, who saw their trade in the making of the various idols and effigies destroyed by the spreading of the gospel. There was much prejudice and hatred. Then there would always be the Jews, yes, even in Ephesus, and there would be the Judaisers – different again – people who were Jews at heart, who had somehow got in among the churches of Christ, and were preaching works. He would have opposition from all quarters, and the more opportunity, the greater the opposition.

Application

Sometimes people pray for revival; and so we should, and awakening. Oh, if God were to come into this land, this atheistic and materialistic land, at the present time in revival power by the power of the Holy Spirit, how wonderful it would be! But some people, when they pray for these things, seem to visualise a door that will swing open; and things will just happen – the crowds will just come; the word will go out, and people will be remarkably and amazingly converted. But historically, in times of revival the messengers of Calvary, the ambassadors of the cross, are absolutely worn out. It is a door of great and strenuous effort, and in awakening, many of the messengers die young – like John Cennick – from early burnout, from the constant preaching in damp barns and cold places to vast crowds, morning, noon and night. There is tremendous activity involved. The people are not levitated into the services, into the meetings, to join the crowds. They are gathered in, by the usual process – by witness, strenuous witness. It is just on a much larger scale. Some people, dare I say, who pray for revival – if God graciously gives it – will not know what has hit them. When we pray we must be ready to labour also.

We have opposition today in our land. We have much intense atheism; and how sad and how tragic to see how it has affected many people. People constantly say, ‘In my place of business, in my profession, in the circles in which I move, people are just trained to be contemptuous and utterly dismissive, and reject anything and any witness.’ It is a tragic that many people, contrary to the natural instincts of the human heart to acknowledge God, have been trained to despise these things as mere human notions, outdated and irrelevant.

There is the power of materialism. People are just dedicated to acquisitiveness, to things they can possess. We have deep immorality, and in the rising generation we now have two or three decades of progressive teaching of young people in the schools to experiment, to be licentious, to do whatever they like. That naturally means, people are very reluctant to hear a message of repentance and remission of sins; great prejudice to part with sins and to know shame for sins.

Then there is entertainment, relentless entertainment, piped to people by every conceivable electronic means; and that powerful, euphoric drug of beat, constantly in the ears of the people, by iPod and all other means. That makes it impossible for people to think of life, and Creator, and its meaning, and the deeper things of life.

Then there is persecution coming along. Many people now can no longer witness in their place of work; people being thrown out of their professions, because they let slip a word for Christ at the wrong time in the wrong place; and that may well gather speed, gather pace and force quite considerably.

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1 Corinthians 16:9 Commentary and Bible Study