Ministry of the Thorn

2 Corinthians 12:1-10

April 10, 2005

 

"Every believer must learn that human weakness and divine grace go hand in hand together," so wrote Philip E. Hughes [NICNT, 443]. But that kind of statement runs contrary to much of what we've grown accustomed to in this modern culture. Any kind of weakness is deemed bad, unwanted, and something to be shunned, if at all possible. That is our natural tendency and desire. We do not want weaknesses in our lives. We want to be physically, emotionally, spiritually, mentally, and relationally strong. We want no deficiencies in our lives. That's why we work out, go for counseling, practice spiritual disciplines, read books, and spend time in social interaction. The fact is that none of this is bad or wrong or even a problem. We must strive to be strong in each aspect of life. But with strength, most unfortunately, come some problems.

 

Several dangers can arise. One is pride-the devil's seemingly chief tool to chop us down and deflate our desires for progress and destroy our confidence in God. It can happen right in the midst of doing something that is good. Another is self-confidence-yet another form of pride in which we begin to depend upon our own abilities and powers and capacities while neglecting trust in the Lord. Another is obsession with self-the focused energies and time on building up ourselves to the neglect of learning to rest in dependence upon the Lord. In the challenge of doing good things we can be overly focused on ourselves.

 

The Lord ever works in our lives so that we might learn to trust Him and enjoy Him and depend upon His strength. Sometimes, to bring us into the enjoyment of the living Lord, He sends along a "thorn" to minister to us. That is a strange minister, I must admit. Yet the ministry of the thorn has helped along countless numbers of God's people through the years. The thorn can take different shapes and sizes. Its design, though probably not apparent to any of us immediately, is effective in bringing us into more intimate knowledge of Christ and His sufficiency.

 

To help us understand this, let us probe something of Paul's so-called "thorn in the flesh," considering why it came to him, who delivered it, and what it accomplished. Perhaps out of this we might find more usefulness in our lives for some things that we've despised or considered detriments to our lives.

 

I. Visions and revelations

 

Keep in mind:

 

a. Paul is continuing his struggle with the false teachers in Corinth, those he called "super-apostles." They tried to undermine Paul's apostolic authority in order to chip away at the sufficiency of Christ alone in the gospel.

 

b. Paul has to resort to speaking of himself, something that he found "foolish"; yet it appeared necessary due to the outlandish claims of the false teachers.

 

c. The Corinthians had been lulled into an enchantment with the false teachers; they found their boasts to be acceptable and readily accepted their abusiveness as a privilege instead of seeing it for what it truly was.

 

So Paul tells about a particular personal experience to let the Corinthians know that he was no second-rate apostle. These false teachers made great claims; but their boasts were empty, fraudulent. So again, Paul tells of his own experiences but does so in the third person so as not to draw undue attention to himself.

 

1. What are these visions and revelations? (vv. 1-4)

 

a. Insights and advanced looks into the future

 

b. Revelatory words of God, which of course, we've received 2000 years later in terms of the epistles of Paul

 

c. He saw things that he could not speak of due to: hearing "inexpressible words" (a term used of divine secrets unintended for human ears); seeing and hearing what was unlawful for him to speak due to it being part of another realm and world that awaits believers.

 

d. He pinpoints this as being 14 years before this time. Paul had numerous extraordinary experiences, e.g., blinding light on the Damascus Road; vision of the man from Macedonia asking for help; the Lord standing next to him while in Corinth for his initial work, to encourage him to continue preaching without fear. But none of these comprise this present vision and revelation due to the timeframe. This would be during the obscure years when Paul was in Syria and Cilicia, unknown to the churches at large (Gal 1:21-24), in that period when he was unceremoniously dropped from the Damascus wall in a basket to head for Tarsus, until Barnabas tapped him as an assistant for the work in Antioch.

 

e. Paul very clearly tells us little about what he saw or heard. He tells us more about what he does not know concerning the nature of how it happened than what happened. He was "not permitted to speak" about these things. They happened, and the impression of them, were emblazoned on Paul's mind; but he could say nothing.

 

2. Why were these visions and revelations given to Paul?

 

That's a good question! I think quite simply, he needed these special "visitations from God" in order to give him courage to face extraordinary suffering for the sake of the gospel. He was "caught up to the third heaven," which means that he was in the very presence of God. Francis Schaeffer explains, "The point is that this man was caught up into Heaven, and then he came back" [The Complete Works of Francis Schaeffer, vol. 3, 237]. His whole perspective on everything in this life changed in light of what he saw in the life ahead. Schaeffer gives us a good perspective on the reason for such an experience:

Can't you imagine this man as he came back from Heaven? He had seen it as a propositional truth, as a brute fact. He had been there, and looked at it, and then had come back. Would anything ever have looked the same to him again? It is as though he had died. It is as though he had been raised from the dead. Just as the Mount of Transfiguration gives us a different perspective when we are in the perspective of the kingdom of God, how different this man's outlook would have been all his life. The constant pressure to conform to the world about us, the social pressure and every other kind of pressure of our day-surely it would have been broken. How could he conform to this which is so marred, so broke, so caught up in revolution against God? How could he, in comparison with what he had seen? What would the praise of the world be worth when one had stood in the presence of God? The wealth of the world-what would it look like beside the treasures of Heaven? [237-238]


3. Are we to depend upon receiving similar visions and revelations?

 

Some espouse this kind of teaching. But there are some distinct differences:

 

a. Paul did not have the complete canon of Scripture as we do; he had access to the OT writings, but he was involved, along with others, in writing what would become the final written revelation of God.

 

b. Paul's work was foundational. He laid the groundwork for the spread of the early church. He would consequently be attacked viciously by the opponents of the gospel, so he needed an unusual preparation for maintaining courage in the face of constant difficulties (see 11:21-33 to get an idea of what was happening; and this was not a complete picture!).

 

c. Paul had been set apart by the Lord as an apostle. Apostles bore the special responsibility of being the foundation for the church through their testimony of the gospel and the revelations given to them (Eph 2:20). The Apostles left us written testimony and explanation of their "apostolic gospel." Apostles set the trajectory for the church.

 

d. How would we know if a vision or revelation was authentic? This is where much danger comes into Christian circles. Unless what we see or perceive corresponds with Scripture, then we dare not put our confidence in it.

 

e. Can there be special times that God might minister to His children through seeing a vision or giving them a revelation of something that will soon happen? Yes, that can happen, but we have no Scriptural reason to think this to be the norm. There are examples among the Scottish Covenanters of this happening: e.g., John Welsh of Ayr perceived his impending capture and predicted that he would not preach again in Ayr; the Roman Catholic influenced soldiers captured him and deported him to France. George Wishart predicted the death of Cardinal Beaton who had pursued him to the martyr's fire in St. Andrew's-and it happened in less than 3 months. Those were significant times of unusual persecution, so that it pleased the Lord to give these servants a special visitation to enable them to endure and bear up. But that was not what sustained their lives. They lived by the promises of God in His Word, not upon visions.

 

4. What effect did these visions and revelations have on Paul?

 

In a word, they overwhelmed him! He referred to it as "the surpassing greatness of the revelations," something that he deemed excessively grand. He was sustained and strengthened by them but they also had another effect. Because Paul saw and understood what others did not know or understand, he found himself slipping into a prideful spirit. He faced the temptation of exalting himself among the rest of the Christian church or even Christian leadership. He discovered out of this that it was better to admit weaknesses rather than to become puffed up by boasting of grand experiences.

 

So, you will notice that he does not tell what he saw or knew; just that it happened and was of such a superlative nature that it was necessary for the Lord to give him a thorn to corral the natural tendencies of the flesh for boasting or pride or egotism. We need not think that we are immune from such tendencies either! It can slay mighty giants and topple great redwoods by boasts in the flesh. God has such great concern for this particular sin because in it, He is robbed of the glory that rightfully belongs to Him alone. Boasting in the flesh turns attention to self and away from God. The adversary works destruction by the devices of prideful boasting. So the thorn became a wonderful minister to Paul!

 

II. Strange Ministry

 

I call this "strange ministry" since the idea of "a thorn in the flesh" comes as an unusual tool of divine ministry in the believer. Consider several issues related to this thorn in the flesh. Geoff Thomas points out, "The principle is this: privilege may lead to pride. As a result, God may render one weak in some other respect to keep one's head from swelling" ["The Thorn in the Flesh," http://users.aber.uk/emk/ap.sermons/2cor55.htm, p. 7].

 

1. Nature of the thorn

 

The term "thorn" is variously translated as "stake" that might be used for impaling or torturing someone, or as a wooden staff or as a splinter. Why did Paul even bring up the uncomfortable subject of this own thorn in the flesh? Philip Hughes explains, "And it is most remarkable how, by a kind of condign paradox, the explaining of his deepest humiliation requires the revealing of his highest exaltation, so that the very point where his adversaries hold him to be most contemptible is linked with an ineffable experience far outshining the tawdry tinsel of their vaunting" [441].

 

Obviously, the "thorn in the flesh" is a metaphor of some point of great anguish, shame, or humiliation that corralled the apostle's tendency to vaunt himself or to be swelled with pride. The fact is, we do not know what Paul had precisely in mind by this thorn; lots of speculations have been made but no one can assert without doubt what constituted the thorn. Many ideas have been posed:

 

a. Physical-poor eyesight caused by some type of ophthalmia, such as, glaucoma; epilepsy, recurring malaria, earache, migraine headache, Malta fever which had severe pain, delirium, hair loss, and physical unsightliness; additionally, "hysteria, hypochondria, gallstones, gout, rheumatism, sciatica, gastritis, leprosy, lice in the head, deafness, dental infection, neurasthenia, an impediment of the speech" [Hughes 446].

 

b. Spiritual-unusually strong temptations to sins of the flesh, lusts, impurities of various sorts.

 

c. Emotional-"remorse for the tortures he had himself inflicted on Christians prior to his conversion" [Hughes 446].

 

d. Adversarial-Paul's opponents, such as Alexander the coppersmith, Hymeneus and Philetas, and others that fought against him, imprisoned him, and opposed him in the preaching of the gospel.

 

Maybe the reason that we don't know precisely what constituted Paul's thorn is to keep anyone with a similar thorn from boasting of apostolic likeness, and thus falling prey to pride in experience of weakness. Or it may be to keep open the reality that "a thorn in the flesh" can come in any number of types, styles, and sizes for Christians in every age. So the anonymity of Paul's thorn helps every Christian to identify with Paul's weakness, and more importantly, with the strength that comes through grace alone.

 

2. Purpose of the thorn

 

Whatever the thorn, it was enough to bring Paul low, to humble him, to remind him of his own inherent weaknesses in the flesh, and to keep his look toward the Lord of glory and grace. And we can be sure that Paul did not over-spiritualize the thorn by having a great party to celebrate its arrival. He prayed three times, evidently in great agony, for the Lord to remove the thorn. That tells us that the thorn is never something that we would choose for ourselves. It is never something comfortable or consoling. At the onset, there is no apparent value in it or advantage to it. It is something that you desire to be rid of, and the sooner the better! It may cause pain or discomfort or humiliation or anguish or some other unpleasant emotion or feeling.

 

Thorns are painful! I can remember numerous times as a boy and young man, traipsing through the woods when suddenly, I stepped right into the middle of thorn bushes! It's the kind of situation where you cannot just suddenly yank yourself out. You must be delicate because every way that your turn you cause pain and discomfort. You are frozen in the midst of the thorns, trying to decide a way out that causes the least amount of pain.

 

Even so, "a thorn in the flesh" is something that we will instinctively ask the Lord to remove. It is that distinct feeling of being impaled on the horns of a dilemma! We make our case before the Lord of why we will be much better off without the thorn. We think of a dozen reasons that such a thorn is impractical and a hindrance to our service for Christ.

 

Is it wrong for us to think and pray in such fashion? I think not, as long as our attitude is one of resting and depending on doing the will of God when all is said and done. Our Lord prayed in the Garden for the cup of suffering that He was about to face to pass from Him. But He prayed, "Not My will but Yours be done." Such submission of our lives before the wisdom and power and purpose of our Lord is critical in dealing with the whole purpose of a thorn in our lives. We do not know but that the thorn is temporary, and something for which we are to pray for deliverance and see it happen, such as David's eventual relief from the incessant pursuits of King Saul.

 

Yet when the Lord is not pleased to remove the thorn, then we must submit to His purposes and glory in His good pleasure on our behalf. In Paul's case, the thorn came as a "messenger of Satan to torment" him. Yet, by what appears to be a strange paradox, it is obvious that the thorn "was given" to Paul "to keep [him] from exalting [himself]." Surely, Satan would not do anything to help rid us of pride! He wants to sink us by pride. What we learn from the apostle is that even the devil's design to hurt the Christian is overridden by God's providential purposes in our lives. Like Job of old, the devil may have his intent to destroy, but God has His greater purpose to bring us to glory.

 

Geoff Thomas clarifies this: "The thorn was a humiliating disability acting as a counterpoise to enforce the great truth that a Christian can only survive and achieve anything for God by a sense of his natural helplessness... God subjects us to a regimen of suffering because our usefulness is to be much greater" [pg. 11, 13]. William Cowper expressed it best in his immortal hymn.

 

Deep in unfathomable mines

Of never failing skill

He treasures up his bright designs

And works his sovereign will.

 

Blind unbelief is sure to err

And scan his work in vain.

God is his own interpreter

And he will make it plain.

 

III. Doctrine of the thorn

 

What strange ministry comes through the thorn! Perhaps even stranger is the doctrine of the thorn: "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness."

 

1. Lesson in sufficiency of grace

 

"God's purpose over and through Satan's harassment is our humility," writes John Piper. "Paul was in danger of pride and self-exaltation and God took steps to keep him humble. This is an utterly strange thing in our self-saturated age. God thinks humility is more important than comfort. Humility is more important than freedom from pain." That is staggering in an age when everything focuses on comfort, security, and ease. Yet God's purposes extend beyond this age to the age to come. "He will give us a mountain top experience in Paradise, and then bring us through anguish of soul lest we think that we have risen above the need for total reliance on his grace. So his purpose is our humility and lowliness and reliance on him" [http://www.desiringgod.org/library/sermons/91/071491.html, 5].

 

In this case, grace is viewed as power-power to live for Christ, power to serve, power to worship, power to witness, power to resist temptation, power to remain faithful, power to exercise contentment.

 

2. Abiding power

 

Paul found weaknesses to open the door, as he submitted to Christ, for Christ's power to tabernacle in him. "God's design is to make you a showcase for Jesus' power," comments John Piper [ibid]. In the midst of our weaknesses, when we have nothing to personally boast of, that's when Christ's power invigorates us and enables us. "He must increase, but I must decrease," declared John the Baptist (John 3:30). That is Paul's same message. The thorn brings us low so that we no longer look to our abilities and strength but look to Christ.

 

3. Contentment with weakness

 

There is no martyr's complex or sadistic attitude displayed in v. 10. Instead, when, "for Christ's sake," weaknesses come our way, and God is not pleased to remove them, recognize them as instruments for opening the way to know Christ's strength. Your weakness is exchanged for His strength-that's the divine economic plan!

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