The Thorn He Begged God to Remove

Paul had just described the most extraordinary spiritual experience of his life — being caught up to the third heaven, hearing inexpressible things. Then immediately after: a thorn in the flesh. Paul calls it "a messenger of Satan to harass me." The contrast is jarring. The highest spiritual experience followed by the lowest physical affliction.

We don't know what the thorn was — scholars have suggested everything from an eye disease to a spiritual antagonist to recurring persecution. What matters is what Paul said about it: it was given to keep him from becoming conceited. The thorn was not punishment; it was protection against the pride that the extraordinary experience might have produced.

He pleaded with the Lord three times to remove it. Three times — just like Jesus asked three times in Gethsemane. Three times, and the answer was the same each time: no removal. Something better instead. "My grace is sufficient for you."

Paul stopped asking for removal. He started asking for grace. And he found that the thorn had become the condition for something he would not have wanted to live without.

Just before the thorn passage, Paul does something extraordinary: he boasts. But he doesn't boast about his accomplishments — he boasts about his sufferings. Five times beaten with thirty-nine lashes. Three times beaten with rods. Once stoned. Three times shipwrecked. In danger from rivers, robbers, his own countrymen, Gentiles, false brothers. Sleepless, hungry, cold, naked.

This is the résumé Paul presents before introducing the thorn. He's not trying to earn sympathy. He's making an argument: everything the world would consider evidence of failure, Paul considers evidence of God's faithfulness.

Then the thorn. Then God's answer. Then Paul's conclusion: "When I am weak, then I am strong." He learned that what he thought was disqualifying God was using as his primary platform.

When Moses finished the tabernacle, the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Moses could not enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.

The tabernacle was a fragile, temporary structure — animal skins and wooden frames in the wilderness. And yet the glory of God chose to dwell in it. Not because the structure was magnificent, but because God had chosen it as his dwelling place.

Paul reaches back to this imagery when he says the power of Christ "rests upon" him. The thorn-weakened Paul is the tabernacle. The power of Christ is the Shekinah glory settling over the tent. Weakness is the kind of dwelling God has always preferred.