WHAT OPENS WHEN DOORS CLOSE?
ACTS 16:1-10
NASB
1 Paul came also to Derbe and to Lystra. And a disciple was there, named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek, 2 and he was well spoken of by the brethren who were in Lystra and Iconium. 3 Paul wanted this man to [a]go with him; and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those parts, for they all knew that his father was a Greek. 4 Now while they were passing through the cities, they were delivering the decrees which had been decided upon by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem, for them to observe. 5 So the churches were being strengthened [a]in the faith, and were increasing in number daily.
6 They passed through the [a]Phrygian and Galatian region, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in [b]Asia; 7 and after they came to Mysia, they were trying to go into Bithynia, and the Spirit of Jesus did not permit them; 8 and passing by Mysia, they came down to Troas. 9 A vision appeared to Paul in the night: a man of Macedonia was standing and appealing to him, and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” 10 When he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to [a]go into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.
16:3 [a]Lit go out 16:5 [a]Or in faith 16:6 [a]Or Phrygia and the Galatian region [b]I.e. west coast province of Asia Minor 16:10 [a]Lit go out
NLT
1 Paul went first to Derbe and then to Lystra, where there was a young disciple named Timothy. His mother was a Jewish believer, but his father was a Greek. 2 Timothy was well thought of by the believers[*] in Lystra and Iconium, 3 so Paul wanted him to join them on their journey. In deference to the Jews of the area, he arranged for Timothy to be circumcised before they left, for everyone knew that his father was a Greek. 4 Then they went from town to town, instructing the believers to follow the decisions made by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem. 5 So the churches were strengthened in their faith and grew larger every day.
6 Next Paul and Silas traveled through the area of Phrygia and Galatia, because the Holy Spirit had prevented them from preaching the word in the province of Asia at that time. 7 Then coming to the borders of Mysia, they headed north for the province of Bithynia,[*] but again the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them to go there. 8 So instead, they went on through Mysia to the seaport of Troas.
9 That night Paul had a vision: A man from Macedonia in northern Greece was standing there, pleading with him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us!” 10 So we[*] decided to leave for Macedonia at once, having concluded that God was calling us to preach the Good News there.
[16:2] Greek brothers; also in 16:40. [16:6-7] Phrygia, Galatia, Asia, Mysia, and Bithynia were all districts in what is now Turkey. [16:10] Luke, the writer of this book, here joined Paul and accompanied him on his journey.
It’s hard to imagine how a closed door can be a gift from God. I’m not referring to personal tragedy, such as bankruptcy, divorce, the death of a loved one, terminal illness, or some other form of evil. God will use those events in your favor if you belong to Him (Rom. 8:28), but that’s not what I mean by a “closed door.” God never causes evil. He does, however, open and close opportunities to accomplish His purpose in individual lives and in the grand scheme of history. Jesus describes Himself as “He who is holy, who is true, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, and who shuts and no one opens” (Rev. 3:7). Because closed opportunities keep us from achieving what we desire, the Lord’s activity can feel like a curse. Life appears barren, wasted, hopeless. Emotionally, we feel set aside, forsaken, overlooked, even abused. Even so, a closed door can be a wonderful expression of God’s love.
The first part of Paul’s second missionary journey is a story of open doors. He had spent the last several months telling churches in Samaria, Phoenicia, and Syria about how the Lord had “opened a door of faith to the Gentiles” (Acts 14:27; cf. 15:3) on his first journey. The Council at Jerusalem had affirmed his ministry and given him written confirmation of the gospel of grace. His home church in Syrian Antioch enthusiastically commissioned him for another journey. The first leg of his voyage took him through the familiar territory of Syria and Cilicia, where people knew him and welcomed his teaching. After passing through the Taurus Mountains, he enjoyed reconnecting with the churches that he and Barnabas had previously planted in Derbe, Lystra, and Iconium. He even found a promising young student, Timothy, who was eager to learn about ministry. Then doors slammed shut.
Of all the challenges Paul had overcome —robbers, enemies, illness, rejection, stoning, idolatry —the hardship of closed doors would be his greatest to date.
— 16:1-3 —
Paul’s route took him to familiar territory. He had been to Derbe and Lystra with Barnabas and their team earlier; he had suffered especially in Lystra when a posse of angry Jews from Iconium arrived, whipped up a mob, stoned him in the streets, dragged him to the edge of town, and left him for dead (14:19). Even so, Paul and Barnabas returned to encourage the stunned believers.
At this point, Luke introduces a man who would become Paul’s student in ministry. Paul the apostle had and would continue to recruit and train a number of men, but he regarded Timothy as a son (1 Tim. 1:2). The young man may have come to faith through the ministry of Paul and Barnabas —if not, then certainly as a result of the churches they planted. He may have witnessed the aftermath of Paul’s stoning; if not, he had certainly heard the stories. Luke states that Timothy had a Greek father (Acts 16:1), who is never mentioned elsewhere, perhaps because he had died by this time. As a Roman colony, Lystra had a significant population of retired soldiers. The city also served as a garrison for active troops who defended Galatia from the surrounding mountain tribes. Therefore, it is reasonable to surmise that Timothy’s father had served in the Roman army as a soldier, married a Jewish woman, and taken up permanent residence in Lystra before he died.
Jewish blood ran through Timothy’s veins, thanks to his mother, but he didn’t receive a Hebrew upbringing in the synagogue. He received biblical and theological training from infancy (2 Tim. 3:14-15), but he never became a true “son of the covenant” through circumcision, most likely because his father objected to the rite. Paul mentions Timothy’s godly upbringing by his mother, Eunice, and his grandmother Lois, whose influence helped prepare the young man for rapid spiritual growth after hearing the gospel (2 Tim. 1:5). By the time Paul and Silas arrived, Timothy had earned a solid reputation among the churches in Lystra and Iconium (Acts 16:2).
When Paul recruited Timothy for ministry, he circumcised the young man (16:3). This was not in obedience to the Law, and not just because Timothy was Jewish, but probably to allow him greater access to the synagogues that Paul and Silas planned to visit in the near future.
— 16:4-5 —
Luke’s summary statement describes Paul’s ministry in the region, both before and after picking up Timothy, which occurred just after his visit to Derbe. He read the official proclamation of the apostles and elders in Jerusalem, thus immediately shutting down any would-be teachers of the circumcision group (16:4). The churches had received authentic doctrine from the men who knew Jesus from the beginning and had been trained by Him. Because of the letter and through Paul’s teaching, the churches were “strengthened” (16:5). A good mental image for the term stepeoō [4732] would be a preadolescent boy filling out as muscle replaces baby fat. As the churches grew stronger, they also grew larger.
Luke’s repeated use of the imperfect tense —“were passing,” “were delivering,” “were being strengthened,” “were increasing” —not only signals a summary passage, but the tense also implies that the effects of Paul’s ministry continued after he moved on. Paul’s team, which now included Timothy, solidified Christianity in southern Galatia and Phrygia as they moved east to west toward promising new territory in the Roman province of Asia.
Continuing into Asia made perfect sense. In 6 BC, the Romans had established a string of colonies across present-day Turkey and linked them with an impressive highway system. From Iconium and Pisidian Antioch, Paul could follow the Via Sebaste to Comama, where he could then follow the “Common Highway” all the way to Ephesus. These roads were broad (nearly 12 feet wide) and heavily traveled, making them relatively safe.[150] Most important, however, this gave them the best access to the greatest number of people in the interior of the land.
The Lord had other plans for Paul and Silas, however. Asia would have to wait.
— 16:6-8 —
Paul’s team journeyed farther north in Phrygia and Galatia because the Lord had blocked their progress west into Asia. More closed doors. To the north, they kept attempting to enter Bithynia on the south shore of the Black Sea, but again the Lord barred their entry, keeping them south of Bithynia and north of Asia as they turned to the west, passing along the northern part of Mysia. Luke’s use of verb tenses implies consistent, repeated attempts to enter Bithynia; they tried and tried until their westward progress ended. Eventually, they simply ran out of land at the coastal city of Troas.
Luke describes their experience as “forbidden by the Holy Spirit” when trying to enter Asia (16:6), and about turning north to Bithynia, he writes that “the Spirit of Jesus did not permit them” (16:7). “Forbidden” comes from a Greek term (kōlyō [2967]) that means “clipped,” “snipped,” or “cut off.” Figuratively, it’s a picturesque term meaning, “to prevent or hinder.” Luke doesn’t explain how the men perceived God’s resistance. During the period of Acts, they could have heard audible instructions, but Luke doesn’t indicate this. Perhaps instead certain circumstances —under God’s sovereign control —kept Paul and Silas out of the forbidden areas. Rather than write off their unfortunate situations as coincidental, they recognized the sovereign hand of Christ guiding them where He wanted.
It takes a spirit sensitive to the Lord’s leading to maintain this kind of perspective. We naturally tend to wonder what we did wrong or, if we know we did nothing wrong, play the victim. We compare ourselves to others for whom doors seem to open left and right. We try harder to go where the Lord has forbidden, or we give up and go home after a few doors slam shut. Paul and Silas did none of that. They persisted, never doubting their call. Simply stated, they submitted to the sovereign direction of God. They understood that the Lord has every right to open and close opportunities, to give and to take away. Through it all, however, they didn’t doubt the Lord’s goodness or kindness.
— 16:9-10 —
Troas was not a remarkable city, other than for its function as the gateway to Asia from Macedonia. Paul, Silas, and their team ended up there with nowhere else to go. From Phrygia, they simply followed the only course open to them, which carried them north of Asia, south of Bithynia, and westward until the Aegean Sea stopped them. Sometime after arriving —Luke doesn’t state whether it took a matter of days, weeks, or months —Paul received a vision in his dreams, which he immediately recognized as divine in origin (16:9). In this vision, a man that Paul recognized as Macedonian was “appealing to” (parakaleō [3870]) him to “help us” (boētheō [997]). Suddenly, the past several weeks made sense. Paul had considered Asia the next logical choice for expansion of the gospel, but God had His heart set on Europe. The Lord would eventually bring Asia into the kingdom, but His timing differed from Paul’s.
When you’re following the plan of God, dead ends are never mistakes. The Lord maneuvered Paul and Silas to where He wanted them at a specific time. While in Troas, Paul met Luke, who seems to have lived in Philippi. This is the first of three “we” passages in which the writer switches from third-person pronouns to the first person. In other words, this is where Luke himself becomes a part of the story because he joins the team.
As we will discover soon, the city was a large Roman colony, but it didn’t have a synagogue. Either the city leaders didn’t want a Jewish house of prayer or, more likely, the population didn’t include ten Jewish men, the minimum requirement to establish one. Paul preferred to preach in the local synagogue of a new city, not only for theological reasons, but also to find a way to break the ice with the Gentiles. Paul and Barnabas had preached to pagans in the marketplace without the benefit of a synagogue before, and the results could not have been worse. Their experience in Lystra demonstrated the clear benefits of having a contact on the inside of a community. By God’s design, Luke fit the bill.
All the closed doors now made sense. The period of vague confusion suddenly came into focus to show that the Lord had them on a clear trajectory. The long weeks of frustrated ministry had prepared Paul, Silas, Timothy, and the others for new marching orders. Without hesitation, they set out for Macedonia (16:10).
APPLICATION: ACTS 16:1-10
Door Stops
Closed doors don’t feel nearly so frustrating with the right perspective. When you trust in God’s plan, knowing He’s in control and always does what is right, anxiety melts into serene confidence, irritation yields to surrender, fear gives way to trust. Paul’s closed-door experience offers some helpful truths to keep in mind when we have reached a dead end.
Number one: Before the Lord can turn us, He often has to stop us. Some of us are rolling along faster than ever in our lives. But you know how it is when you get stopped, when you find yourself at a dead end. Every door is shut. You try north; it doesn’t open. South? Not any better. East? West? Equally closed off. You’re stuck. He stopped you. That’s the time to pause rather than panic. Find time to be alone so you can pay attention to what’s going on within you and around you. God wants you to see something before moving on; there’s some perspective you need or crucial information you lack.
Number two: God never closes a door without a plan to open another. That sounds like a platitude designed to inspire optimism, but there’s more to this truth than saying “Everything will work out.” This is a bold affirmation of God’s sovereignty. No Christian has a right to feel hopeless. Quite the contrary: There’s no such thing as a hopeless case for a Christian. Where the nonbeliever worries that a mistake or wrong turn has led to a dead end, the child of God knows that even his or her dead ends are part of God’s design. In Paul’s case, the Lord used circumstances to guide the apostle and his team, directing them like water down a chute, to Troas. At the end of this blind alley, they had little choice but to wait on the Lord for direction. Rather than despairing, they waited for direction, confident in their mission.
When facing a similar situation, resist the urge to fight your way out of the dead end. Instead, pull back and wait. Rather than search for escape, seek the Lord’s direction.
Number three: Doors open and close according to God’s timing, which is perfect. It appears that the Lord not only closed the door to Asia and opened the door to Europe, but He also arranged the timing so Paul could meet Dr. Luke, who would prove helpful in Philippi. If he was, indeed, a resident of that city, his personal contacts would have been invaluable in the absence of a synagogue. We tend to think of success in terms of destination and progress, but wise people have learned that it’s also about timing. Paul waited on the Lord and didn’t press on until he had clear direction. He understood that waiting is sometimes the best way to make progress.