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The Truth About Paul's Thorn I receive many letters from people from all around the world and I would like to share this one with you from a lady named Anna… “Dear Pastor. I have had many different battles over the years with sickness. Right now I have very painful arthritis in my hands and back and I also have diabetes. My church teaches that this is my cross to bear and that Paul suffered with an eye disease and it was his thorn in the flesh. I have believed this teaching all my life. My parents believed this. I recently saw someone on TV teaching that God is willing to heal me, yet I am having a hard time believing this. Can you help?” What Anna wrote in this letter typifies what many churches are teaching today and I want to say very emphatically that it’ s an outrageous, disgraceful lie that has kept God’s children in bondage, with one foot in the grave and the other one wallowing in misery. If your church is teaching that you have to live with sickness and disease as a thorn in your side, it is a slap in the face to Jesus, who went to that cross to take away your sicknesses. Isaiah 53 is clear on this. The Bible says that you were already healed and the word “healed” comes from the Greek word “sozo”, which means, “to save from perishing, such as with a disease; to make well, heal, restore to health.” We can either believe what the Word says about healing and receive it, or we can believe what the world says and reject what Jesus did for us on the cross. As agents of free will, God leaves this choice up to us… Now, Paul’s thorn in the flesh is falsely taught that God allows us to get sick in order to teach us something. If that were true, then everyone who has suffered from any disease are all spiritual giants and all would have gone happily, further and further into sickness and some even to death, never attempting to get medical help and never praying to get well. How many Christians do you know who have happily received sickness and disease and refused to pray or seek help in order to get well? I can’t say I know too many. There are two main errors concerning “traditional” and not “biblical” teaching of Paul’s thorn in the flesh. 1. That God sent a sickness to Paul and that
it was a terrible eye disease. 2. That God refused to heal Paul. These teachings are both false. Here’s what the Bible really says about Paul’s thorn. In 1 Corinthians 12:7-10, the “thorn in the flesh” was a Messenger of satan, sent to buffet Paul. It wasn’t God’s doing. The word “buffet” means “to deal blow after blow.” The word messenger is the Greek word, “agello”. It is translated “angel” 179 times and “messenger” 7 times. It is never translated to mean disease or physical infirmity. The messenger of satan, or a demon, buffeted Paul, and dealt him blow after blow wherever he went, as he preached the Word. He was doing God’s work and satan was mad! Paul’s body did suffer, yes, and after all he went through there’s no doubt that his body was a complete wreck at times. But his “thorn in the flesh”, or as we would call it today as a colloquial term, “a pain in the neck”, was not a disease. So what happened to Paul? Next week, part 2…
By Pastor Kimberly Lemler Continued from last week’s article… So what
happened to Paul? In 1 Corinthians 11 it lists all the ways that he suffered and it talks about such things as: five times scourged; three times beaten with rods; once stoned; three times shipwrecked; 24 hours at sea; in perils of robbers; in hunger and thirst; in many infirmities (which is translated “frailty of the body”). And the list goes on and on about how Satan kept coming after him, dealing him blow after blow… Paul’s
suffering was not from an eye-disease…nowhere does it say this! His suffering
was not because of the curse of personal sin. Paul suffered because of his
belief in Jesus Christ and Satan was the one who sent a messenger to buffet him
or to beat him up physically, emotionally and mentally so he would stop
ministering to people! God helped
him go through the sufferings that Satan inflicted. God said that when Paul was
weak, He would give him the strength he needed, but He didn’t remove Satan’s
attacks because the Word says that Satan is the God of this world. We are
fighting this battle in life with Satan and his four levels of troops as listed
in Ephesians 6. God gave Paul the grace, the power, and the strength to
endure…and it only made Paul stronger! In Acts 14:19, Paul was stoned and left
for dead, but God raised him up, and the next day he walked at least twenty
miles into the next town and started preaching again. What a wonderful
testimony to God’s awesome Lordship and His power! Christ’s Spirit, who lived
inside of Paul, quickened his mortal body… In 2 Timothy
3:12 it says, “All that live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution”
and in 2 Corinthians 12:9 Paul said that he gloried in “persecution, reproaches
necessities, and distresses that the power of Christ might rest upon him”. The
word “glory” means “to have dominion over”. So when Paul spoke of glorifying in
infirmities and persecution, he was speaking victory even in the midst of
continual harassment and aggravation by Satan and his army. God wants
you well. He says in Jeremiah 29:11
"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a
future." Does this sound like God wants to zap you with a disease?
No! We need to get a hold of the truth
in the Word that proves to us that God is good and sickness and disease is not
on the agenda for His children. The
suffering that we go through in this life can be one of four different types of
suffering; general suffering or discomfort that we all experience; sinful
suffering that can be the consequences we bring upon ourselves as the result of
sin; demonic suffering which is the direct result of satanic attack; and
Christian suffering which is in the form of persecutions because of what we are
doing for Christ, or it can be suffering that involves crucifying our
flesh. But suffering with sickness and
disease is NOT what our Lord Jesus Christ wants us to endure… Why do theologians and ministers misinterpret Paul’s thorn
to mean sickness? The reason is obvious… they are looking for loopholes in
God’s covenant of health. God makes it abundantly clear in His Word that Jesus
bore our sickness and that He is the God who heals us from all our diseases.
Never did Jesus tell anyone to keep their sickness for the glory of God. Never
did Jesus tell us that sickness or disease is a thorn in our sides that we must
bear. Yet, instead of accepting the teachings of the Bible regarding divine
healing, people hunt through the Scriptures, hoping to find exceptions to our
covenant of health. No doubt that Satan is the driving force behind this
twisted way of thinking. It is vital for us to realize that that
the “thorn in the flesh” was not a sickness and therefore we can never use it
as an excuse for why we or someone we know is not healed. Let’s keep our eyes
on the Word, interpreting scripture in light of other scripture, and embracing
all of the wonderful promises of God, which includes healing in every area of
our lives… “And you will know the truth, and the
truth will set you free." – John 8:32 ©Words To Heart Ministries, Inc. Pastor Kimberly Lemler. 2009. |