2 Corinthians 2:12

Note

Paul went to Troas for the gospel of Christ, and there the Lord opened a door. In the next verse he leaves it. This short piece of travel narrative holds both the joy and the anxiety of one who carries the gospel.

In the opening chapters of 2 Corinthians Paul explains why he changed his travel plans and why he had written them a painful letter: "For through many tears I wrote you out of great distress and anguish of heart" (2 Corinthians 2:4). He was waiting to hear how the church had taken it, and Titus was to bring the news. So although a door had opened at Troas, "I had no peace in my spirit, because I did not find my brother Titus there" (2 Corinthians 2:13), and he went on to Macedonia. The story breaks off into thanksgiving and is picked up only in chapter 7, where "God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the arrival of Titus" (2 Corinthians 7:6).

There is no verb "to preach" in the Greek. Paul came eis to euangelion tou Christou, ‘for the gospel of Christ’: the noun euangelion (εὐαγγέλιον) with eis states the purpose of the journey. There a thura (θύρα), a door, stood open. Aneōgmenēs is a perfect passive participle: the door had been opened and remained open. Who opened it is implied in "in the Lord." For Paul it is God who opens doors. He asks the Colossians to pray "that God may open to us a door for the word, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ" (Colossians 4:3).

The KJV, "when I came to Troas to preach Christ’s gospel, and a door was opened unto me of the Lord," supplies the verb, as the BSB does, and takes the Lord as the one who opened. The LSV stays with the Greek: "having come to Troas for the good news of the Christ, and a door having been opened to me in the LORD." The fuller renderings put the sense in the reader's hand; the literal one leaves the passive as it stands and lets the reader ask who opened the door.

Wesley places the visit "in that passage from Asia to Macedonia, of which a short account is given" in Acts 20 Wesley. The open door, he says, means "That is, there was free liberty to speak, and many were willing to hear: yet," Wesley and the word "yet" carries over into Paul's unrest in the next verse. Matthew Henry, reading on into the thanksgiving, notes that "the success of the gospel is a good reason for a Christian's joy and rejoicing" Matthew Henry.

Troas appears more than once on Paul's road. On his first visit he saw in a vision a man of Macedonia calling him across the sea (Acts 16:9). On a later one, "On the first day of the week we came together to break bread" (Acts 20:7), and Paul talked with the disciples until midnight. The door he left this time was not shut for good.

Those who bring the gospel worry, and sometimes they hesitate before an open door. Its course may seem to rise and fall with human circumstances, but the Lord is the one who opens doors, and He can open them again.