and that we may be delivered from unreasonable and evil men; for not all have faith.
Paul could have been thinking of the wicked, fanatical Jews in the city of Corinth, who stood in the way of the gospel there (Acts 18:15-17). When Gallio’s judgment removed this hindrance, the gospel had free course; and Christianity spread rapidly in Corinth. Four years later, Paul writes from the city of Ephesus, "A great and effectual door is opened unto me, and there are many adversaries" (1 Corinthians 16:9). Surely no man apart from Jesus Christ had more deadly enemies than did the Apostle Paul. In 2 Corinthians 11:23-33 he describes some of the perils he endured. No doubt the apostle, when he writes this letter, has ;the heathen priests and philosophers in mind as well as the unbelieving Jewish zealots. Yet seeing the latter were so exceedingly enraged against him for preaching salvation to the Gentiles, without requiring them to obey the law of Moses, that they followed him from place to place and raised a furious storm of persecution against him; it is not improbable that they were particularly pointed at in this passage, especially as they had lately made an insurrection at Corinth, with an intention to have the apostle put to death (MacKnight 433).