1 Corinthians 16:9

1 Corinthians 16:9. for a great door and effectual is opened [1] unto me, and there are many adversaries. He is eager to enter in on a wide and most hopeful field of missionary usefulness, nothing daunted by the resistance expected: compare 2 Corinthians 2:12, “When I came to Troas, to preach Christ's gospel, a door was opened unto me of the Lord;” Colossians 4:3, “Withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ;” 2 Thessalonians 3:1, “Pray for us that the word of the Lord may run and be glorified;” Acts 14:27, “They rehearsed all that God had done with them, and how He had opened a door of faith unto the Gentiles.” Who the “adversaries” were in this case is minutely described in Acts 19: there we find that in consequence of the great success of his work among the Jews at Corinth, the wrath of the unbelieving ones burst forth upon him, but that he foiled them by withdrawing from the synagogue and teaching in the school of Tyrannus, where his success was even greater. After that they made an impotent attempt to ascribe his success to a league with evil spirits to their own confusion and the furtherance of the Gospel. No wonder then that the apostle says here, “a great door and effectual is opened unto me,” and we see here some of “many adversaries.” But the Gentile adversaries were at Ephesus even more formidable; when, encountering the “worshippers of the great goddess Diana,” he was like to be torn in pieces by the “beasts at Ephesus.”

[1] The Greek verb is the ad perf. act in a passive sense.