Theme: Paul’s Thorn in the Flesh and Ours
This week’s lessons talk about how God’s grace is sufficient for the individual and personal trials that come from our own weaknesses, limitations, and struggles.
Scripture: 2 Corinthians 12:9
At this point Paul must have been embarrassed that he had been forced to mention even this one vision, because it is against this background—all I have been describing—that he talks about his thorn in the flesh (v. 7).
At this point Paul must have been embarrassed that he had been forced to mention even this one vision, because it is against this background—all I have been describing—that he talks about his thorn in the flesh (v. 7).
What was it? No one knows exactly what it was, though there has been a great deal of speculation, as you might imagine. Since he mentions “flesh,” there are people who have supposed this to be a weakness in his moral nature. John Calvin took this view. William Ramsay, the great investigator of Paul's travels, suggested that the thorn was malaria that Paul had picked up in the mosquito-infested swamps of lower, coastal Asia Minor on his first or second missionary journey. Some have suggested epilepsy, which is certainly a physical infirmity. Some have suggested a speech defect, because of his admitting to the Corinthians that he did not speak with eloquence when he was among them (1 Cor. 2:1).
