On behalf of such a one I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except in my weaknesses. For if I would desire to boast, I will not be foolish; for I will speak the truth. But I refrain, so that no man may think more of me than that which he sees in me or hears from me. By reason of the exceeding greatness of the revelations, that I should not be exalted excessively, a thorn in the flesh was given to me: a messenger of Satan to torment me, that I should not be exalted excessively. Concerning this thing, I begged the Lord three times that it might depart from me. He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Most gladly therefore I will rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest on me.
Therefore I take pleasure in weaknesses, in injuries, in necessities, in persecutions, and in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then am I strong. I have become foolish in boasting. You compelled me, for I ought to have been commended by you, for I am in no way inferior to the very best apostles, though I am nothing. Truly the signs of an apostle were worked among you in all perseverance, in signs and wonders and mighty works.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv5–12 5. Of such a man It is as though…
5. Of such a man It is as though he had said “I have just ground for glorying, but I do not willingly avail myself of it. For it is more in accordance with my design, to glory in my infirmities If, however, those malicious persons harass me any farther, and constrain me to boast more than I am inclined to do, they shall feel that they have to do with a man, whom God has illustriously honored, and raised up on high, with a view to his exposing their follies.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 To remove all suspicion of ambition he witnesseth that…
To remove all suspicion of ambition he witnesseth that he braggeth not of those things as his own, but as out of himself, and yet notwithstanding faineth nothing, lest by this occasion other men should attribute more unto him than indeed he is: and therefore he had rather glory in his miseries.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv5–12 5 Of such an one will I glory: yet…
5 Of such an one will I glory: yet of myself I will not glory, but in mine infirmities.
Ver. 5. Yet of myself I will not glory] Non nisi coactus, ut supra. Paul was a model of modesty, a very crucifix of mortification, as one calleth him.
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But in mine infirmities] i.e. My troubles, so called, either because under them we seem infirm and contemptible; or else, for that afflictions often show our infirmities, our impatience, &c., they make us sick of the fret, &c.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv5–12 Of such an one will I glory: the apostle,…
Of such an one will I glory: the apostle, as appeareth by what followeth, speaketh of himself; but he does it in a third person. The meaning is, that that man who had been thus dignified of God, in such revelations and visions, might well glory of such a favour; but yet (saith he) of myself will I glory. But how doth the apostle say, that of himself he will not glory, if he were the person intended?
Answer. Some say, he distinguisheth concerning himself; as to his inward man, his soul, (which was rapt into the third heavens) he did glory; but as to his body, or outward man, he would not glory in any thing which he had done, but only in what he had suffered. I should rather interpret it thus: In this the Lord greatly dignified me; but here was nothing of myself; of myself therefore I will not glory in any thing, except those things which I have suffered for the name of God.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 Here the apostle declares, that although this foretaste of…
Here the apostle declares, that although this foretaste of the heavenly glory was worthy to be gloried in, and though he might boast of himself as thus exalted, yet he being purely passive in it, and advanced freely by God to it, he chose rather to ascribe unto God the entire glory of that, and content himself with glorying in such infirmities, and debasing sufferings, as he could strictly call his own, being undergone by him with an invincible courage and constancy of mind.
However, he assures them, that if he had a mind to glory of this rapture and revelation, he might do it without folly or vanity, it being most certainly true; but he chose rather to forbear, lest he should thereby give occasion to any to over-value him, and to think more highly of him, that his common behaviour, his ordinary words and actions gave them reason to do.
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A wise and good man is not ambitious of more applause or commendation that what his personal worth or merits deservedly challenge; he desires no man to think or speak of him above that which he appeareth to be, which is always as he really is, being that in reality, which he is in appearance.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v11 In these verses the apostle addresses himself to the…
In these verses the apostle addresses himself to the Corinthians two ways: -
I. He blames them for what was faulty in them; namely, that they had not stood up in his defence as they ought to have done, and so made it the more needful for him to insist so much on his own vindication. They in manner compelled him to commend himself, who ought to have been commended of them Co2 12:11. And had they, or some among them, not failed on their part, it would have been less needful for him to have said so much on his own behalf. He tells them further that they in particular had good reason to speak well of him, as being in nothing behind the very chief apostles, because he had given them full proof and evidence of his apostleship; for the signs of an apostle were wrought among them in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds. Note, 1. It is a debt we owe to good men to stand up in the defence of their reputation; and we are under special obligations to those we have received benefit by, especially spiritual benefit, to own them as instruments in God's hand of good to us, and to vindicate them when they are calumniated by others. 2. How much soever we are, or ought to be, esteemed by others, we ought always to think humbly of ourselves. See an example of this in this great apostle, who thought himself to be nothing, though in truth he was not behind the greatest apostles - so far was he from seeking praise from men, though he tells them their duty to vindicate his reputation - so far was he from applauding himself, when he was forced to insist upon his own necessary self-defence.
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II. He gives a large account of his behaviour and kind intentions towards them, in which we may observe the character of a faithful minister of the gospel. 1. He was not willing to be burdensome to them, nor did he seek theirs, but them. He says (Co2 12:13) he had not been burdensome to them, for the time past, and tells them (Co2 12:14) he would not be burdensome to them for the time to come, when he should come to them. He spared their purses, and did not covet their money: I seek not yours but you. He sought not to enrich himself, but to save their souls: he did not desire to make a property of them to himself, but to gain them over to Christ, whose servant he was. Note, Those who aim at clothing themselves with the fleece of the flock, and take no care of the sheep, are hirelings, and not good shepherds. 2. He would gladly spend and be spent for them (Co2 12:15); that is, he was willing to take pains and to suffer loss for their good. He would spend his time, his parts, his strength, his interest, his all, to do them service; nay, so spend as to be spent, and be like a candle, which consumes itself to give light to others. 3. He did not abate in his love to them, notwithstanding their unkindness and ingratitude to him; and therefore was contented and glad to take pains with them, though the more abundantly he loved them the less he was loved, Co2 12:15. This is applicable to other relations: if others be wanting in their duty to us it does not follow therefore that we may neglect our duty to them. 4. He was careful not only that he himself should not be burdensome, but that none he employed should. This seems to be the meaning of what we read, Co2 12:16-18. If it should be objected by any that though he did not himself burden them, yet, being crafty, he caught them with guile, that is, he sent those among them who pillaged them, and afterwards he shared with them in the profit: "This was not so," says the apostle; "I did not make a gain of you myself, nor by any of those whom I sent; nor did Titus, nor any others - We walked by the same spirit and in the same steps." They all agreed in this matter to do them all the good they could, without being burdensome to them, to promote the gospel among them and make it as easy to them as possible. Or, this may be read with an interrogation, as utterly disclaiming any guile in himself and others towards them. 5. He was a man who did all things for edifying, Co2 12:19. This was his great aim and design, to do good, to lay the foundation well, and then with care and diligence to build the superstructure. 6. He would not shrink from his duty for fear of displeasing them, though he was so careful to make himself easy to them. Therefore he was resolved to be faithful in reproving sin, though he was therein found to be such as they would not, Co2 12:20. The apostle here mentions several sins that are too commonly found among professors of religion, and are very reprovable: debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults; and, though those who are guilty of these sins can hardly bear to be reproved for them, yet faithful ministers must not fear offending the guilty by sharp reproofs, as they are needful, in public and in private. 7. He was grieved at the apprehension that he should find scandalous sins among them not duly repented of. This, he tells them, would be the cause of great humiliation and lamentation. Note, (1.) The falls and miscarriages of professors cannot but be a humbling consideration to a good minister; and God sometimes takes this way to humble those who might be under temptation to be lifted up: I fear lest my God will humble me among you. (2.) We have reason to bewail those who sin and do not repent, to bewail many that have sinned, and have not repented, Co2 12:21. If these have not, as yet, grace to mourn and lament their own case, their case is the more lamentable; and those who love God, and love them, should mourn for them.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv5–12 And lest I should be exalted above measure,.... Over…
And lest I should be exalted above measure,.... Over much elated in his mind, and swelled with a vain conceit of himself:
through the abundance of the revelations; for he had not only one or two, or a few, but an abundance of them; and which, as everything does but grace, tended to lift up his mind, to stir up the pride of his heart, and to entertain too high and exalted thoughts of himself. Pride is naturally in every man's heart; converted persons are not without it; knowledge, gifts, and revelations are apt to puff up with spiritual pride, unless counterbalanced and over poised by the grace of God. This great apostle was not out of danger by them, for he was not already perfect; wherefore to prevent an excess of pride and vanity in him on account of them, he says,
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there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me; many have been the thoughts and conjectures of men about what is here meant by the apostle. This ought to be allowed and taken for granted, that the thorn in the flesh, and the messenger of Satan, design one and the same thing; the former is a figurative expression, the latter a literal one, and explanative of the former. Some have thought that corporeal afflictions are here designed, which may be compared to thorns: see Hos 2:6, and which are not joyous, but grievous to the flesh, and come not by chance, but are by divine appointment, and are designed and made use of, to hide pride from men; and sometimes, by divine permission, Satan has an hand in inflicting them, as in the case of Job: whilst such a general sense is kept to, it is not to be despised, without entering into the particular bodily disorder with which the apostle was afflicted, as some do; some saying it was the choleic, others the gout, others a pain in the ear, and others the headache; which latter it is said he was much troubled with; but these are mere conjectures: others think that the corruptions of nature are intended which in regenerate persons are left, as the Canaanites were in the land, to be "thorns" in the eyes and sides of the Israelites, Jos 23:13. These, to be sure, were felt by the apostle, and were very grievous and humbling to him, and were no doubt sometimes stirred up by Satan, which made him complain bitterly, and groan earnestly; and it may be observed, to strengthen this sense, that it was usual with the Jews to call concupiscence, or the vitiosity of nature, Satan; for so they (a) often say, , "Satan, he is the evil imagination", or corruption of nature; and particularly they call the lust of uncleanness by this name; and it is said (b) of a young man of Israel, being tempted by a young woman of Midian, through the counsel of Balaam, that , "Satan burned in him", and he turned aside after her; and that the evil imagination is the old serpent; yea, they call this "the messenger of hell", a phrase very much like what is here used.
"R. Hona (c), as he was preaching to the children of men to take warning, said unto them, children, beware "of the messenger of hell"; but who is this? the evil imagination, or concupiscence, is that which is "the messenger of hell";''
and this sense is agreeable, provided the particular corruption the apostle was harassed with is not pretended to, as is by some, who pitch upon the lust of uncleanness, and spare not to mention the person by name, one Tecla, who, they say, travelled with him, and was a snare to him; but this is to do injury to the character of so holy an apostle, and to represent him as exposing himself to the false apostles, against whom he was guarding: others think that a variety of afflictions, reproaches, and persecutions, for Christ's sake and the Gospel, are here meant, which were as pricking briers and grieving thorns to him; see Eze 28:24, and which were given and ordered by divine appointment for his good; this sense, Co2 12:9, lead unto, and seem to confirm: others are of opinion that the temptations of Satan are designed, which, as they are called "fiery darts", which the archers of Satan, and his principalities and powers, shoot thick and fast at the saints, to their great annoyance; so may be here called, especially some very particular, eminent, and sore temptation, a "thorn in the flesh", very pungent, and giving a great deal of pain and uneasiness; others suppose that some particular emissary of Satan, either some one of the false apostles and teachers, who greatly opposed him, as Alexander the coppersmith, who did him much harm; or such an one as Hymenaeus or Philetus, that blasphemed and spoke evil of him; or some violent persecutor of him is intended. But, after all, I see not but that the devil himself may be meant; for, as before observed, the phrase "a thorn in the flesh" is metaphorical, and the other, a "messenger of Satan", is literal, and explains it; and the whole may be read thus, "there was given to me a thorn in the flesh", namely, "the angel Satan to buffet me"; so that Satan, who was once an angel of light, now of darkness, is the "thorn in the flesh"; and might be suffered to appear visibly to him from time to time, in a very terrible manner, and which was very grievous to be borne; he might by permission have great power over his body, as he had over Job's, to use it ill, to beat and buffet it; for this also may be taken literally: and he might likewise in other ways greatly distress him by stirring up the corruptions of his heart; by following him with his satanical injections, suggestions, and temptations; by raising violent persecutions, and instigating many of his emissaries against him; and this sense is the rather to be chosen, because it includes all others that have any show of truth. The Jews (d) sometimes make mention of the angel or messenger of Satan mocking at the righteous, and buffeting them; so God is by them said (e) to deliver Nebuchadnezzar , "to a messenger of Satan". This sore exercise befell the apostle for his good, to keep down the pride of his nature;
lest, adds he again,
I should be exalted above measure; for such ends and purposes does the Lord, in his infinite wisdom, deal with his people. The (f) Jews have a notion that this was one reason of God's tempting or trying Abraham with the sacrifice of his Son, to depress that pride that was likely to arise in him because of his greatness.
"This temptation (they say) was necessary at that time, because above, the grandeur of Abraham is declared how great it was before his enemies made peace with him; and Abimelech, king of the Philistines, and Phichol, the chief captain of his host, were obliged to enter into a covenant with him, and asked him to show favour to them, and to the land in which he sojourned; and perhaps hereby , "his heart was lifted up", in the ways of God; "and his eyes were lofty"; when he saw himself blessed with riches, and with children, and with grandeur and glory, as the glory of kings; wherefore God was "willing to try him": with a wall of iron, (this great difficulty) to see if there was any dross left in him.''
(a) T. Bab. Bava Bathra, fol. 16. 1. Tzeror Hammor, fol. 6. 2. 3. s. 3. 10. 4. 13. 3. 20. 2. 50. 3. 58. 3. 72. 4. 73. 2. 86. 1. 87. 2. 93. 1. 96. 1. 99. 4. 100. 4. 101. 42. 113. 1. & 133. 2. & 141. 3. &; 149. 2. & 152. 3. Raya Mehimna in Zohar in Lev. fol. 7. 2. (b) Bemidbar Rabba, sect. 20. fol. 229. 1. (c) Midrash Hannelam in Zohar in Gen. fol. 67. 4. (d) R. Eliezer Katon de Scientia Animae, l. 10. apud Gaffarell. Cod. Cabal. Misc. pic. Mirandal. Index p. 23. ad calcem Wolf. Heb. Bibliothec. (e) Shemot Rabba, sect. 20. fol. 105. 4. (f) Tzeror Hammor, fol. 22. 1.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv5–11 Of such an one I will - I might,…
Of such an one I will - I might, glory; but I will not glory of myself - As considered in myself.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv5–12 Verse 5. Of such a one will I glory]…
Verse 5. Of such a one will I glory] Through modesty he does not mention himself, though the account can be understood of no other person; for, did he mean any other, the whole account would be completely irrelevant.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv5, 7, 8, 12 2Co 12:5-6. Of such a one will I, or,…
2Co 12:5-6. Of such a one will I, or, I might, glory — As a person highly favoured of Christ; yet of myself — Considered as in myself; I will not glory — Willingly; but in my infirmities — See on 2Co 11:30. Instead of boasting of his raptures into the third heaven and into paradise, he will boast of those very weaknesses for which his enemies ridiculed him, because, the more weak and contemptible he appeared in the eyes of the world, the more clearly was his success in preaching shown to be the effect of the divine power. For if I should desire — Θελησω, will, or, resolve; to glory — Referring to, I might glory, (2Co 12:5,) of such a glorious revelation; I should not be a fool — That is, it could not justly be accounted folly to relate the naked truth. But now I forbear — I speak sparingly of these things; lest any one should think of me — Whose presence is so mean, and whose speech is so contemptible; above that which he seeth me to be, &c. — Above what my spirit and conduct and the constant exercise of my ministry would warrant. Macknight thinks he addresses the faction here by way of irony, and that the sense is, “I might with truth boast of the visions and revelations of the Lord with which I have been honoured, but I will not, for fear any of you should think me a greater person than my mean bodily appearance which he seeth, and my contemptible speech, which he heareth, warrant him to think me.”
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv5–12 Of such an one will I glory - Of…
Of such an one will I glory - Of such a man it would be right to boast. It would be admitted that it is right to exult in such a man, and to esteem him to be uniquely favored by God. I will boast of him as having received special honor from the Lord. Bloomfield, however, supposes that the words rendered “of such an one should be translated “of such a thing,” or of such a transaction; meaning” I can indeed justly boast of my being caught up to heaven as of a thing the whole glory of which pertains to him who has thus exalted me; but of myself, or of anything in me, I will not boast.” So Rosenmuller explains it. But it seems to me that the connection requires that we should understand it of a person, and that the passage is partly ironical. Paul speaks in the third person. He chooses to keep himself directly out of view. And though he refers really to himself, yet he wound not say this directly, but says that of such a man they would admit it would be proper to boast.
Yet of myself - Directly. It is not expedient for me to boast of myself. “You would allow me to boast of such a man as I have referred to; I admit that it is not proper for me to boast directly of myself.”
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But in mine infirmities - My weaknesses, trials, pains, sufferings; such as many regard as infirmities; see the note on 2Co 11:30.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv7, 11 Stimulus carnis meæ, angelus Satanæ, qui me colaphizet, Greek:…
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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]
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Stimulus carnis meæ, angelus Satanæ, qui me colaphizet, Greek: skolops te sarki (in carne mea) aggelos Satan, ina me kolaphize. See St. John Chrysostom, Greek: om. ks. where he says, Greek: me genoito. See Tillemont, chap. x. on S. Paul; a Lapide; &c.
A sting of my flesh,[1] an angel, or a messenger of Satan, to buffet me. The Latin word signifies any thing that pricks or stings, the Greek word a sharp stick or pale: he speaks by a metaphor, as also when he says to buffet me; that is, by causing great trouble or pain. Some understand by it a violent headache or pain, or distemper in the body. St. Augustine mentions this opinion, and does not reject it, in Psalm xcviii. tom. 4. p. 1069.; in Psalm cxxx. p. 1465. St. Jerome also speaks of it in chap. iv. ad Galatas, tom. 4. p. 274. Ed. Ben. But St. John Chrysostom, by sting, and the angel of Satan, understands that opposition which St. Paul met with from his enemies, and those of the gospel; as Satan signifies an adversary. Others understand troublesome temptations of the flesh, immodest thoughts, and representations, suggested by the devil, and permitted by Almighty God for his greater good. --- Thrice I besought the Lord. That is, many times, to be freed from it, but received only this answer from God, that his grace was sufficient to preserve me from consenting to sin. And that power and strength in virtue should increase, and be perfected in weakness, and by temptations, when they are resisted. St. Augustine seems to favour this exposition, in Psalm lviii. Conc. 2. p. 573. St. Jerome, in his letters to Eustochium, to Demetrias, and to Rusticus, the monk. And it is the opinion of St. Gregory, lib. 23. moral. tom. 1. p. 747. and of many others. (Witham) --- If there were any danger of pride from his revelations, the base and filthy suggestions of the enemy of souls must cause humiliations, and mke him blush. But these are to be borne with submission to the will of God, for his power is more evident in supporting man under the greatest trials, than in freeing him from the attacks. --- Power is made perfect. The strength and power of God more perfectly shines forth in our weakness and infirmity; as the more weak we are of ourselves, the more illustrious is his grace in supporting us, and giving us the victory under all trials and conflicts. (Challoner) --- When I am weak. The more I suffer for Christ, the more I perceive the effects of his all-powerful grace, which sustains, enlightens, and strengthens me: the more also the glory and power of God appeareth in me. The pagans themselves were not ignorant that calamity was the soil in which virtue usually grows to perfection. Calamitas virtutis occasio est. (Seneca) --- Optimos nos esse dum infirmi sumus. (Plin. vii. ep. 26.)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv5–12 of myself--concerning myself. Self is put in the background,…
of myself--concerning myself. Self is put in the background, except in respect to his infirmities. His glorying in his other self, to which the revelations were vouchsafed, was not in order to give glory to his fleshly self, but to bring out in contrast the "infirmities" of the latter, that Christ might have all the glory.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv5–12 5. Of such a one—Of that man of fourteen…
5. Of such a one—Of that man of fourteen years ago.
Glory—Will assert that he was in this divine way fitted for an apostleship.
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Myself—My present personality.
Infirmities—In which my detractors triumph.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv5–12 5. Of such a one will I glory: yet…
5. Of such a one will I glory: yet of myself I will not glory] St Paul desires to put the fact in the background that it is of himself he is speaking (see next verse). He has been compelled by the folly and perversity of certain among the Corinthians to touch on these proofs of Divine favour, but he just glances at the topic and passes it by; nay, he even seems to make a distinction between himself as he is and the man once so highly glorified by God, and returns to a kind of boasting more in accordance with his own sense of propriety. So he expatiates on the thorn in the flesh as an instance of how human weakness does but serve to manifest the power of God.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv5–12 (5) Of such an one will I glory.—There is,…
(5) Of such an one will I glory.—There is, if we rightly understand it, an almost exquisite sadness in the distinction which is thus drawn by the Apostle between the old self of fourteen years ago, with this abundance of revelations, and the new self of the present, feebler and sadder than the old, worn with cares and sorrows, the daily rush of life and its ever-growing anxieties. Then he saw with open vision; now he walks by faith and not by the thing seen. He can hardly recognise his own identity, and can speak of the man who had then this capacity for the beatific vision as though he were another—almost as if he were dead and gone. The “non sum qualis eram” of decay and age presents manifold varieties of form, the soldier recalling the stir and the rush of battle, the poet finding that the vision and the “faculty divine” are no longer entrusted to his keeping, the eloquent orator who had “wielded at will a fierce democracy,” complaining of slow speech and of a stammering tongue; but this has a sadness peculiar to itself. Faith, hope, love, peace, righteousness, are still there, but there has passed away a glory from the earth, and the joy of that ecstatic rapture lies in the remote past, never to return on earth.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv5–12 Of such a one. These are legitimate subjects of…
Of such a one. These are legitimate subjects of "boast," because they are heavenly privileges, not earthly grounds of superiority. Except in my infirmities. (2Co_11:30)
Glorying in weaknesses.
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It is not to be wondered at that Paul boasted; the wonder is that, instead of boasting of the extraordinary visions he had experienced, the extraordinary commission he had received, the extraordinary success which had followed his labours, he boasted of what other men would have concealed or have lamented his own infirmities, disadvantages, and troubles.
I THE WEAKNESSES IN WHICH THE APOSTLE GLORIED.
1. His own bodily infirmity was especially present to his thoughts, whenusing this language. Whatever this was, whether general ill health or some special malady, as of the eyes, it was naturally distressing to himself, as it prevented him from doing his work with the ease and pleasure which he might have experienced had he possessed health and vigour of body.
2. The contempt he met with from some amongst whom he laboured was to Paul no cause of mortification, but cause of rejoicing. Let men despise him; if he was able to serve and please his Master, that was enough.
3. The hardships and privations and persecutions he endured in thefulfilment of his ministry were matter of glorying. In these he took pleasure, contrary as such a fact was to ordinary human experience.
II THE GROUND OF THE APOSTLE"S GLORYING IN HIS WEAKNESSES.
1. There can be no doubt that the deepest ground lay in Paul"s sympathywith his Divine Lord. The humiliation and obedience unto death of the Lord Jesus in order to secure man"s salvation became a new source of inspiration, in the direction both of human action and of human suffering, and Paul was crucified with Christ unto the world. He bore about with him in the body the marks of the Lord Jesus, and of this he justly boasted.
2. Personal weakness was the occasion of the reception of new andspiritual strength. For Christ made his own grace sufficient when his servant"s strength was gone. And by a sublime paradox the apostle learned that when he was weak, then was he strong. And thus the very infirmities which seemed to disqualify for service became the occasion of the communication of such spiritual power and aid as rendered the apostle more efficient and successful in the service of the Lord. T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv7, 8, 10, 11, 12 And lest I should be exalted above measure ……
2Co_12:7-11
And lest I should be exalted above measure … there was given me a thorn in the flesh.
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St. Pauls thorn in the flesh
I. These verses treat of Christian trials under the figure of a thorn in the flesh. We should inquire not what the thorn was, but why it was sent. Some trials are evidently not of the nature of a thorn.
1. A thorn is a small, invisible cause of suffering; some secret trouble.
2. St. Pauls thorn was something evil, for he calls it a messenger of Satan. Pain can be blessed to us, but it is not in itself a blessed thing. Now the Bible calls these things evils, to be got rid of if possible. God does not command St. Paul to think the throb of his thorn enjoyable.
3. A thorn causes unvarying, incessant pain: to forget it is impossible. It seems perversely to come in contact with every obstacle. And some sorrows are for ever smarting; some blot on our birth, or some domestic incongruity which the man may forget at his labour; but the time comes when he must go home, and there is the thorn awaiting him.
II. The spiritual uses of this experience.
1. To make us humble. Lest I should be exalted above measure. It is strange that pride is felt for those things over which we have the least control, and to which we have the least right. In the school the vain boy is not he who has amassed knowledge by hard toil, but he whose genius is often made an excuse for idleness. Hereditary rank, over which we have no control, and which demands that we should be more noble than other men, is often the cause of pride. He is not usually proud of wealth who has toiled for it, but rather he who has won it by a lucky speculation. The real hard worker is seldom proud; he has known so much of his ignorance, his weakness, in the hard work of acquiring. So in things spiritual. The proud man is he who dreams and lives in the third heaven, and is too grand to have to do with this low earth, and who substitutes his frames and fine feelings for good works. Now to bring all this down God sends thorns. Bitter penury will guard a man from extravagance; and great reverses from reckless speculation will often bring to experience the meanness of debt. There is no better humiliator than constant physical pain. By the constitution of our planet there are peculiar trials to our physical frame; in the temperate zone, biting frosts and cold; in the warmer climate, the serpent and the constant fever; everywhere there is the thorn in the flesh.
2. To teach us spiritual dependence. Liberty is one thing--independence another; a man is free, politically, whose rightful energies are not cramped by the selfish, unjust claims of another. A man is independent, politically, when he is free from every tie that binds man to man. One is national blessedness, the other is national anarchy. Liberty makes you loyal to the grand law, I ought; independence subjects you to the evil law, I will. So also religious freedom emancipates a man from every hindrance which prevents his right action. Every Christian ought to be a free man, but no Christian is or ought to be independent. Look not every man on his own things, but on the things of others. Bear ye one anothers burdens. All things are lawful to me, but all things are not expedient, etc. Is that independence? There is no independence on earth; we are all dependent on the breath of God. Trial soon forces us to feel this. As well might the clouds that surround the setting sun, tinged with gold and vermilion, boast that they shine by their own light. So when we know ourselves aright we shall feel that we are strengthless and must depend entirely on His all-sufficient grace. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)
The thorn in the flesh
I. The apostles trial. There was given to me, says he, a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me.
1. Observe, he traces the dispensation to its appointment, There was given to me. Affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground. I was dumb, says David, and opened not my mouth, because Thou didst it. It is the Lord, let Him do what seemeth Him good.
2. Observe further, that although St. Paul looks upon his trial as proceeding from God, he still denominates it the messenger of Satan. Does this appear strange? The bitter draught was only administered by Satan; it was prescribed by God. God appointed the evil, and Satan, by His permission, inflicted it. This is all that the devil can do.
II. But let us inquire into the design of the apostles affliction. As our heavenly Father gives every trial, so He has some object in view in giving them. He doth not, says the prophet Jeremiah, afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men. The Physician frequently, however, sends trials not to heal our spiritual maladies but to prevent them. O Lord, Thou hast searched me and known me; Thou understandest my thoughts afar off. God does not, therefore, require that sin should manifest itself in the outward conduct in order to attract His notice; He beholds its secret risings in the heart; and often before the storm arises He drives us to a place of refuge.
III. The apostles conduct under his trial. He did not give way to fretfulness or become sullen and dejected; he did not begin to quarrel with God, to charge Him foolishly, to murmur at His dealings, or to insinuate that the same end might have been attained by less severe means. Three things are deserving of notice in this prayer of the apostle.
1. The subject of it. He prayed that his affliction might be removed. To be patient and submissive under afflictive dispensations is plainly a Christian duty. But prayer for the removal of our trials is not inconsistent with submission under them.
2. And observe how he prayed--
(1) Earnestly. I besought the Lord. His was not a cold and lifeless prayer, the prayer of the formalist who is indifferent about its success.
(2) Perseveringly. He besought the Lord thrice. He humbly resolved, like Jacob, to wrestle till he prevailed. He continued to knock till the door was opened.
3. Observe, further, to whom the apostle prayed. It was to Jesus Christ. This is evident, for St. Paul distinctly regards the answer as having come from the Saviour: Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. And to whom should we fly in the hour of trial but to the same almighty Saviour, who took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses? He can enter into all the trials of His people. We have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.
IV. The next point for our consideration is, the answer received by the apostle. And He said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee, for My strength is made perfect in weakness. As our prayers are not always answered when we expect, so neither are they at all times answered in the way that we look for. Was it not the same thing to him whether his burden were removed or whether strength were given to sustain him under it? Nay, was it not infinitely better for him that the gold should remain in the furnace since it was promised that the fire should not destroy or injure but only refine it?
V. Notice in the last place his pious resolution: Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Earnestly as he had before desired the removal of his trial he desires it no longer. (W. Cardall, B. A.)
The thorn in the flesh, or soul schooling
These words teach us--
I. That the exercise of spiritual discipline is expedient for the best of men. Paul required it. Lest I should be exalted, etc.
1. Pride is a great spiritual evil.
(1) Most inimical to soul-progress. Pride goeth before destruction, etc.
(2) Most offensive to God. He resisteth the proud, etc.
2. Good men have sometimes great temptations to pride.
II. That the mode of spiritual discipline is sometimes very painful. Paul was visited with a thorn in the flesh. What the thorn was is a question for speculation; the idea is plain. Note--
1. That suffering stands connected with Satan. The great original sinner is the father of suffering.
2. That both suffering and Satan are under the direction of God. He makes them subserve the discipline of His people, the good of the universe, and the glory of His name.
III. That the means of spiritual discipline are sometimes misunderstood. Paul prays to be delivered from that which was sent for his good. Note--
1. The ignorance which sometimes marks our prayers. We often, it is to be feared, pray against our own interests like a patient seeking the removal of a medicine which alone could restore him. Do you pray for the recovery of a child? Should that child grow up to manhood he might perhaps break your heart; spread vice and misery through the entire circle of his life. There are some blessings which are positively promised by God, such as pardon, etc., for which we may pray not only thrice, but incessantly; and there are others which we may esteem desirable, but which are not promised. These we must seek in submission to His will.
2. The kindness of God in not always answering our prayers. He knows what is best. He deals with us as a wise and merciful Father.
IV. That the supports under spiritual discipline are abundant. My grace is sufficient for thee, etc. Observe--
1. The nature of this support. What matters the weight of the burden if the strength is equal to bear it with ease! As thy day so shall thy strength be.
2. The principle of the support--Grace. It comes not from merit.
3. The influence of this support. Most gladly therefore, etc. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
The thorn in the flesh
I. Discipline (verse 7).
1. It was painful in its nature.
2. It was Satanic in its agency--The messenger of Satan sent to buffet me. The devil has been the opponent of the good in all ages. Adam. David. Peter. Good out of evil.
3. It was counteracting in its influence--Lest I should be exalted above measure. Counteraction a great principle in the economy of God. In the moral realm--goodness and severity of God. Man is prone to the excesses of despair and pride. Pauls old sin was self. The besetting sin before conversion threatens to reassume its old power after conversion. The balloon requires the weight of sandbags. Paul learnt the lesson of humility. He speaks of himself as one not worthy to be called an apostle; less than the least of all saints; the chief of sinners. Only two safe places for the believer, says an old preacher, the dust and heaven, and of the two, the dust is the safer; for the angels fell from heaven, but no one was ever known to fall from the dust. One way from the valley of humility--upward, and that ends in eternal honour.
II. Prayer (verse 8).
1. The prayer was Divine in its object--the Lord. Throne of grace the best resort in trouble. Men are foolish to attempt to carry their own burdens.
2. The prayer was earnest in its spirit--I besought the Lord thrice.
3. It was ignorant in its request--That it might depart from me. The thorn was not pleasant, but it was profitable. Trials are blessings in disguise. Zigzag is often better than straight--though not so easy. Trials bring triumph, and losses gain. A forest in Germany was consumed by fire, but underneath a precious vein of silver was discovered.
III. Support (verse 9).
1. Its nature--My strength. Conscious weakness is Gods instrumentality. Thus there is not the shadow of a doubt who the real worker is. God, not man, to have the glory. Moses rod used to divide the Red Sea. A cannon in itself is a lifeless piece of iron; but when loaded with ball and powder and the spark applied, the ball becomes a thunderbolt, and the powder a flash of lightning, then the fortress comes crashing in ruins to the ground.
2. Its principle--My grace. Trials of grace are supports of grace.
3. Its effect (verse 10).Rejoice in tribulation. Tunnel leads to the terminus. Why should we complain and despair? Let us remember the Master, whose brow was pierced with a crown of thorns. (B. D. Johns.)
St. Pauls thorn in the flesh
I. Signal manifestations of Divine favour are apt to beget spiritual pride. It was after he had been signally honoured that Haman began to boast. In like manner, it was after Paul had witnessed the glory of heaven that he was in danger of being elevated above measure.
II. Affliction is intended to prevent as well as to recover--Lest I should be, etc. The prophet Hosea, when speaking of the infatuated inclination of Israel to wander from the Lord, tells us that God determined to hedge her way with thorns, and make a wall about her, that she shall not find her paths. And in this is the goodness of God, as well as His severity, made manifest.
III. God overrules the immediate actions of Satan for His own glory and good of His people. Our text tells us of Satan casting out Satan. St. Paul was preserved from spiritual pride by a messenger of Satan.
IV. Pride is an object of Gods utter aversion. (J. F. S. Gordon, M. A.)
Pauls thorn in the flesh
1. We have an apostle in danger.
2. We have Christ using means to protect His servant.
3. We have the wonderful effect of the means which Christ used.
The danger was a real one. This thorn in the flesh was no needless pain. Given by God, it could never have come without necessity. It was a real spiritual danger which confronted St. Paul. But how? St. Paul tells us that the danger was lest he should be exalted above measure, lest his spiritual joy at the revelations should pass into spiritual pride. It is undoubtedly strange that revelations from God should expose His servants to such danger. Some say that it is impossible that it should be so; that spiritual light could never be a danger, or at least not in the case of such a man as St. Paul. St. Paul knew better; he knew that whatever lifts a man above his fellows is in danger of lifting him too far, exalting him above measure. The lesson here is that even Gods best gifts may expose to danger. Illustrations of this may be seen every day in modern life, and the preacher cited the case of a man who had been Gods instrument in the salvation of many souls whose own soul was damaged by it. He learned to boast of his power and fell, and died an awful death. St. Paul knew his peril, and, what is more, he acknowledged it. The means employed to protect St. Paul was a gift from God, though a messenger of Satan. We see that it came from God by reason of the aim for which it was sent. Here, then, we have the wary eye of the Great Shepherd on the watch for the good of His servant. This thorn in the flesh was an abiding pain. Three times had the apostle prayed for its removal. At the same time it was something which could be removed, or why the prayer? St. Paul obtains a completely new view of life. The one thorn has explained to him all forms of suffering, and now he takes pleasure in them. Though some of his afflictions came by bad men, he recognises them as a gift of God; and this thorn, a messenger of Satan to buffet him, is transformed into a minister of heaven. Many seem handicapped in their life-work by pain and suffering in themselves and others. Take the case of a young man whose sick mother seemed to be a burden to his every effort. In the light of the text we see that that sickness may be, instead of a burden, the very ballast the young man needs to ensure his safety. (J. A. Beet, D. D.)
The temptation of St. Paul
I. The temptation of Paul.
1. This was probably some physical infirmity, and if it did not obstruct him in his ministerial labours, it rendered them difficult and distressing. He was like a workman whose hand was smarting from a festering wound, or like a traveller with a foot lacerated and lamed. And his affliction was aggravated by the advantage Satan took of it. The Lord put in the thorn, and for gracious purposes; but Satan endeavoured to defeat those purposes by turning the thorn into a temptation. And so Satan may make our afflictions as well as our blessings snares to us or poisons, instead of medicines and blessings. And the apostle represents it as striking and bruising him, and thus felt disgraced.
2. And how many of us can feelingly place ourselves in St. Pauls situation! We have had thorns in our flesh, shameful marks which the world has seen. Sometimes we are ready to say when suffering under any of these, Were we really the servants of Christ, it would not be thus with us, and a scoffing world may say the same; but here is one of the most beloved, honoured, of all the Lords servants in the same situation as we. And the Bible and Church history show that it has been the lot of the holiest men.
II. Its design. Lest I should be exalted. These words show us--
1. That the Lord foresees any spiritual danger that is coming on us.
2. That the Lord often graciously guards against the danger He foresees. He sends us affliction sometimes, not to chasten us for having fallen into sin, or to recover us out of it, but to keep us out of it.
3. That the Lord sometimes keeps off evil from us by Satans efforts to bring us into evil; He overrules temptation by temptation. We shall never know how much we are indebted to Satan till we are safe in heaven, and look back there on all the perilous way which has led us to it.
4. How offensive sin is in the sight of God! He will afflict the servant He loves, rather than allow him to fall into it.
5. What a load of suffering the mere tendency to pride within our souls may bring on us!
6. What danger we are all in of yielding to this hateful and tormenting sin.
III. Pauls conduct under it (verse 8). One end why the Lord sends us temptation is to quicken us to prayer. When all is smooth the spirit of prayer too often declines. Here, too, is a practical carrying out of the truth on which this apostle is so often dwelling--the ability and willingness of Christ to sympathise with us when suffering and to help us.
IV. The result.
1. A virtual denial of his request. Twice he prays--no answer comes. Here then was a deathblow to all Pauls hopes of relief. It was like telling him that he must carry his thorn down to the grave. But this is the way in which the Lord often answers His praying people. We know not what to pray for as we ought. We give way to sense and feeling. But though we may not know what to ask, the Lord well knows what to give. Hence He sifts our prayers before He answers them, sees whether they correspond with our necessities and His purposes. Instead of giving us relief He gives us strength; He leaves the burden on us heavy as ever, but He places His everlasting arm underneath us, and causes it so to bear us up, that we hardly feel our burden.
2. A complete change in the view he took of his affliction. Before he regarded it as an evil to be, if possible, got rid of; but now, observe, he has learnt to glory in it and take pleasure in it. My infirmities bring glory to Christ, then let me keep them. (C. Bradley, M. A.)
The thorn in the flesh
Apply this to--
I. Temporal circumstances.
1. If we examine closely the lot even of those who seem the most signally favoured of fortune, we shall perceive that their happiness is not full-orbed. Something is wanting. He is rich, but a stranger, it may be, shall inherit all that he has. He is famous in the world, but has no joy at his domestic hearth. A noble career opens to him, but health fails. Fortune seems to give everything, but yet in a strange irony withholds the one thing which would make all the rest to have any true value. This, of course, is still more observable with the many who are not so favoured; everywhere there is some good thing withheld or some sad thing added, some thorn in the flesh. It is sometimes evident to all the world, in other cases only the sufferer himself knows.
2. How easy it is to grow impatient under a discipline such as this--at first to ask that it might be removed, and then if, as it seems, we are not heard, to fret and murmur. Very often a man is the more irritated because there is nothing romantic or heroic about it. Alas! we do not know that such messengers as these to humble us are a most important part of the discipline of our lives. It takes very little to puff up these vain hearts of ours. The thorn in the flesh, that is the appointed means to keep us low.
II. Spiritual life. There is perhaps nothing which so much disappoints the young and earnest Christian as the slow progress which he makes in holiness, and his exposure to temptations of the lowest, the meanest kind. He had hoped that he was to travel on from one height of Christian attainment to another without hindrance. He, too, having been in his third heaven, counts that he shall never come down from it, or at any rate does not expect that henceforth he shall be liable to the everyday vulgar temptations which he sees to be besetting so many round him. Soon, however, he learns his mistake. God has provided some better thing, not release from temptation, but victory in and over temptation. (Abp. Trench.)
The thorn in the flesh
Many desire to gaze on the secret lives of eminent personages. For once we are able to gratify curiosity, and yet minister to edification. We are plainly taught how mistaken we are when we set eminent saints upon a platform by themselves, as though they were a class of superhuman beings. Paul enjoyed more revelations than we have, but then he had a corresponding thorn in the flesh. He was a good man, but he was only a man. Note--
I. A danger to which the apostle was exposed ... Lest I should be exalted above measure.
1. It was natural that he should stand in danger of this. When God lifts us up we may lift up ourselves, and then we fall into serious mischief. How many among us could bear to receive such revelations as Paul had? Now, if Paul was in this danger, so holy, humble, wise, and experienced; if so massive a pillar trembles, what peril surrounds poor reeds shaken of the wind! Observe that in Pauls case the temptation was not one which operates in the common, coarse way. It was that he should say within his own soul, I have seen as others have not. I am the favourite of heaven.
2. Now, although in Pauls particular form of it, this temptation may not be common, yet in some shape it waylays the best of Christians.
(1) Every man loves the commendation of his fellow-men. It is vain for us to boast of not caring about it; we do care about it, and our duty is to keep that propensity in check.
(2) There are some men in whom self-consciousness is so strong, that it will come up in the form of being very easily annoyed because they are overlooked, or in being easily irritated because they fancy that somebody is opposing them.
(3) Others who, because they have more real spiritual knowledge, and a deeper inward experience when they hear the prattle of young beginners, or the blunders of saints, cannot help saying to themselves, Thank God, I do know better than that. They have probably also been successful in sacred work, a legitimate source of rejoicing, but a temptation to boastfulness. Among the flowers of gratitude will grow the hemlock of pride.
3. None of the things we have spoken of are justifiable grounds for boasting. What if a believer should have received more Divine illuminations than his fellow? Did not the Lord give them to him? There are two beggars in the street; I give one a shilling and the other a penny; shall the man who obtains the shilling be proud, and glory over his companion? Generally the loudest boasting is excited by accidental circumstances.
4. It is dangerous for a Christian to be exalted above measure, for if he be--
(1) He will rob God of His glory, and this is a high crime and misdemeanour.
(2) It is equally evil to the Church. Had Paul been lifted up he would have become the leader of a sect; the rival rather than the servant of Jesus.
(3) It would have been bad for ungodly sinners, for proud preachers win not mens hearts. He who is exalted in himself will never exalt the Saviour.
(4) It would have been worst of all for the apostle himself, for pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.
II. The preventative.
1. Note every word here.
(1) There was given to me. He reckoned his great trial to be a gift. You have not one single article that is a better token of Divine love to you than your daily cross.
(2) A thorn. A thorn is--
(a) But a little thing, and indicates a painful but not a killing trial.
(b) Yet it is almost a secret thing, not very apparent to any one but the sufferer.
(c) A commonplace thing, such as might grow in any field and fall to any mans lot--nothing to make a man remarkable.
(d) One of the most wretched intruders that can molest our foot or hand. Those pains which are despised because they are seldom fatal, are frequently the source of the most intense anguish--toothache, headache, earache, what greater miseries are known to mortals?
(3) In the flesh. The evil had an intimate connection with his body. Each expositor seems to have selected that particular thorn which had pierced his own bosom. The apostle did not tell us what it was, perhaps that we may every one feel that he had sympathy with us--that ours is no new grief.
(4) The messenger of Satan. Not Satan, but one of Satans errand boys. An encounter with Satan might not have humbled him. It is a grand thing to fight Satan face to face and foot to foot; but to be beset by a mere lackey of hell, to be tormented by so mean an adversary, this was galling to the last degree, and therefore all the better for the purpose for which it was sent.
(5) To buffet, i.e., to cuff him. Not to fight with him with the sword; that is manly, soldierly work; but to buffet him as pedagogues box the ears of boys.
2. This preventative was well adapted to work out its design, for assuredly it would recall the apostle from ecstacies. He said once, Whether in the body, or whether out of the body, I cannot tell; but the thorn in the flesh settled that question. He had dreamed, perhaps, that he was growing very angelic, but now he feels intensely human. This made him feel that he was--
(1) A weak man, for he had to do battle with base temptations that seemed not worth fighting with.
(2) A man in danger, and needed to fly to God for refuge.
3. From all this I gather--
(1) That the worst trial may be the best possession; that the messenger of Satan may be as good as a guardian angel.
(2) That the worst and deepest experience may only be the needful complement of the highest and the noblest; it may be necessary that if we are lifted up we should be cast down.
(3) That we must never envy other saints. If we meet with a brother whom God blesses, let us not conclude that his pathway is all smooth. His roses have their thorns, his bees their stings.
III. The immediate effect of this thorn upon Paul.
1. It drove him to his knees. Anything is a blessing which makes us pray.
2. In this way Paul was kept from being proud. The revelation now seemed forgotten. A man does not want to tell pretty stories when sharp pains are goading him.
3. Paul continued to pray, till at last he received for an answer, not the removal of the thorn, but the assurance, My grace is sufficient for thee. God will always honour our prayers, and sometimes it is a golden answer to deny us our request, and give us the very opposite of what we seek.
4. The result was that the grace given him enabled him to bear the thorn, and to glory that he was permitted so to suffer. Wish not to change your estate. Your heavenly Father knoweth best.
IV. The permanent result.
1. It kept him humble always. Fourteen years rolled away, and the apostle never told anybody that he had been caught up into the third heaven. When he did tell it, it was dragged out of him.
2. It is no small matter when God sends a thorn in the flesh and it answers its end, for in some cases it does not. We have known some whom poverty has made envious, whom sickness has rendered petulant, whom personal infirmity has rendered rebellious against God. Let us labour against this, and if God has been pleased to put a fetter upon us in any shape, let us ask Him not to allow us to make this the occasion for fresh folly, but, on the contrary, to bear the rod and learn its lessons.
Conclusion:
1. What a happy people Gods people ought to be, when a curse becomes to them a blessing! If the thorn be a blessing, what must the blessing itself be?
2. What a sad thing it must be not to be a believer in Christ, because thorns we shall have if we are not in Christ, but those thorns will not be blessings to us. I understand drinking bitter medicine, if it is to make me well; but who would drink wormwood and gall with no good result to follow?
3. Remember that he who sent Paul thorns for his good once wore a thorn-crown Himself for the salvation of sinners; and if you will trust Him you shall be saved from the thorn of unforgiven sin, the fear of the wrath to come. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The thorn in the flesh
The attempt to determine the exact nature of Pauls trial is like the attempt to ascertain the species of the lily Christ alluded to in the Sermon on the Mount. Scientific determination of the plant may be interesting to the botanist, but the lesson of trust in Providence can be learnt equally well from the daisy or violet. So here, many of the ills that flesh is heir to, can effect the same moral discipline produced by Pauls special affliction, if borne in the same spirit. There are, however, two figures applied to it in this passage, which partially characterise it. It was a thorn in the flesh. Not a crushing stroke, but a protracted trouble, that seemed like a thorn that had buried itself below the skin, and caused a constant sense of irritation. It is also termed a messenger of Satan sent to buffet him. This expression recognises the frequent connection there is between suffering and moral evil. What is of more importance than a knowledge of the specific nature of the thorn, is that Paul felt it was designed to produce spiritual results in his character. That Paul was a man of high spirit we gather from several incidents in his history; we also know that he was a man of fine sensibilities, and the combination of these two qualities form a temperament very apt to run into pride. It was not excessive self-esteem of the ordinary sort that constituted his special danger, but self-esteem in its most dangerous form of spiritual pride; exaltation above measure on account of the abundance of the revelations. Religious ecstacy is a gift rather than an acquirement, and those whose temperament leads to it are liable to plume themselves on this account on a supposed superiority to their fellow-Christians. As he could soar, while others had to remain on the level, he might be tempted to underestimate them and to overestimate himself. Whenever such feelings arose, there was the sharp pang of the thorn to recall him to himself, and remind him that he shared the infirmities of humanity. For just such a purpose does God frequently send a permanent trial. An excessive valuation of self is brought down by repeated failures in life, which remind us how narrow are the limits of human power. It was not at first that Paul comprehended the real meaning of his thorn in the flesh. His first impulse was to get rid of it, and he prayed to the Lord for its removal. Christianity never teaches us to value pain for its own sake, never represents it as good in itself. That is the idea of Indian fakirs or medieval monks. Dont press the thorn into the flesh; extract and throw it away if it is possible; but if all efforts are unavailing, then submit to it as to the will of God. (W. Bird.)
The thorn in the flesh
Note--
I. Pauls danger. Lest I should be exalted, etc. He was in danger of being raised too high--
1. For his usefulness as a minister. Paul had to do with poor mortals upon earth--what was the language of paradise to them? But when he spoke to them of thorns, and prayer, and sustaining grace, he was on their level.
2. For his present condition as a Christian. Peter on the Mount of Transfiguration exclaimed, Master, it is good for us to be here, etc.; but he knew not what he said. What would have become of his wife and family? As the Saviour does not pray that His followers should be taken out of the world by death, so neither does He draw them out of it by religion.
3. As a favourite of Heaven. Christians are not like the Holy One of God. Owing to the sin that dwelleth in us, we are in danger from everything around us; and therefore must walk circumspectly, and watch and pray.
II. His preservation. There was given to me a thorn, etc. All creatures are in the Lords hand, and under His control; He gave Joseph favour in the sight of the jailer; brought Elijah food by ravens; and sent Paul safety by Satan himself! Paul does not say, Because I was exalted above measure, but lest I should be. Affliction is designed to prevent as well as to recover. You were not vain and worldly--but God saw a train of circumstances which would flatter you into self-importance. He therefore determined to prevent the evil; and it is commonly said, Prevention is better than cure.
III. His prayer. Prayer is the refuge of the afflicted, and cannot be offered in vain; its very exercise brings succour. How does your affliction operate? Does it lead you to quarrel with instruments, or to commit your cause unto God? A man under sanctified affliction will continue instant in prayer. Thus Paul besought the Lord thrice. The prayer of faith is always heard, but not always immediately answered. The reason is not that God is wanting in kindness, but that He exercises His kindness wisely. We are like children; we wish to gather the fruit while it is yet unripe. But He pulls back our impatient hand. The time of delay is often peculiarly trying. But he that believeth maketh not haste.
IV. His answer.
1. The answer does not apparently correspond with the petition. Paul prayed to have the thorn removed: to this God says nothing, but assures him of something unspeakably better. With regard to temporal things we cannot be too general in our prayers, or refer ourselves too much to the pleasure of God. For our prayers, like ourselves, are imperfect; nature sometimes speaks, without our being aware of it, in the tone of grace. Hence God sometimes denies a request entirely; at other times He separates the good from the evil, and grants us a part; while frequently He answers by way of exchange. If a child was to ask of a father a fish, and he should give him a serpent, we should be shocked. But suppose the child, by reason of his ignorance, should ask for a serpent instead of a fish; we should then admire the father if he refused what he asked and gave him what he did not ask. Our Heavenly Father always gives according to what we ought to ask.
2. The answer is yet blessed and glorious. My grace is sufficient for thee! Sufficient for what? Write all thy wants underneath. Sufficient for--
(1) Thy work, which often discourages thee. As thy day, so shall thy strength be.
(2) Thy warfare, which often alarms thee. But more are they that are for thee than they that are against thee.
(3) Thy affliction, which often depresses thee. But When thou passeth through the waters, I will be with thee. It is sufficient
(a) To sanctify your afflictions.
(b) To render them supportable; yea, to enable you to glory in tribulation also. (W. Jay.)
The thorn in the flesh
This has been a thorn in the pulpit expositions of all the Christian ages. By carefully concealing it Paul has made all that want to be wise above what is written uneasy to find it out. But it cannot be of much use to us to know what it was, since the man who suffered from it did not care to tell us, and if we could know that it was a defect in his eyes, or his speech, or a pain in his head, or the want of a foot to his stature, that particular thorn would fasten us down to a particular experience, and we should lose the great general lesson. Note--
I. The thorn in the flesh of our common humanity.
1. We cannot fail to see it in the greatest and noblest lives. It may be a mean thing, like Byrons club-foot, or as great a thing as Dantes worship of Beatrice, or a great vice, like that which held Coleridge and De Quincey, or only like the dyspepsia that darkened the vision of Carlyle. In David it was a great sin; in Peter it was the memory of that morning, when he turned his back on the noblest friend that ever a man had; in Luther it was a blackness of darkness, defying both physicians and philosophy; in Wesley it was a home without love, and a wife insane with jealousy, with an old love that was never permitted to bloom. We need not be anxious about Pauls mystery; some of these things hurt him, and made the poor manhood of him quiver, I was talking with a gentleman who knows intimately one of our greatest living Americans; and I said he must be one of the happiest of men. There is that in his life, my friend said, you do not see, and very few are aware of. I knew him a long time before I guessed it: it is a pain that he carries about with him like his shadow; not a bodily, but a mental pain, which he will carry with him to his grave.
2. And what the thorn is to these men in their great estate it may be to us in ours.
(1) We feel the pain of personal defect, and very naturally, because the standard of physical beauty and perfection can no more be altered than the standard of geometry. We admire physical perfection. We notice and pity defects. To those who endure them they are a thorn in the flesh, bringing keen suffering and morbid brooding. I never blamed Byron for feeling as he did about his foot. The blame lay in his never summoning to the maimed part the strength that is made perfect in weakness.
(2) Pauls thorn may have been a defect in his utterance. What a thorn it is to many that they can never adequately express their thought! You will find him to be a great lumbering waggon, loaded with ingots of gold, Robert Hall said of John Foster in recommending him to a church, and I hope you know gold when you see it, or else he will never do for you. They called him, and he failed, as he had failed elsewhere.
(3) Nothing but Pauls saintliness has saved him from the guess that his thorn was some bad passion or appetite. Very sore is this pain, and very common. Children are sometimes born with appetites fatally strong. Old Dr. Mason used to say, as much grace as would make John a saint, would barely keep Peter from knocking a man down. I heard a man say once, that for eight-and-twenty years the soul within him had to stand, like an unsleeping sentinel, guarding his appetite for strong drink.
II. What can we do about it? We can make the best of it, or the worst of it. If I find myself, e.g., in early life in the possession of a passion that is rapidly growing into a curse, I can submit to its dictate without a struggle, or I can stand up and fight it. There may be manliness where there is little grace. I can be so manly in bearing my burden that my silence shall be golden. Did I break down? was I unmanned? a great man said when the thorn in the flesh had hurt him so terribly that he lost his consciousness. He felt he must be a man even then.
III. What can come of the thorn if we find out Pauls way of dealing with it. He bore his trouble man fashion, as well as he could; but then found himself unable to win much of a victory. The pain was there still, and he felt as if he would have to give way at last, and go down. So, in the simple old fashion, he took the matter into the Supreme Court, and said, I want this thorn removed; I can bear it no longer. But the Judge said, No, it must stay. To take it away would be to destroy the grace to which it points. I will not take the bane, but I will give you another blessing. Lately, when I crossed Suspension Bridge, I got talking with a gentleman about the crystallisation of iron. We agreed that every train which crossed the bridge did something to disintegrate the iron particles and break the bridge down, and that if this process could go on long enough, there would be a last train, which would shoot right down into the gulf. But long before this could come to pass all these strands and cables would be made over again in the fire and under the hammer, and come out as strong and good as ever. To take them out and then let them lie at rest on the banks would be no sort of use. The iron-masters would say, That would make the strands eternally unfit for their purpose; the hammer and fire can make them better and stronger than ever. Is not this also the law of life, that the fineness and strength essential to our best being, and to make us do our best work, come by the thorn in the flesh, which may act in us as the fire acts in the iron, welding the fibre afresh, and creating the whole anew (as the apostle would say) unto good works? (R. Collyer, D. D.)
Rejoicing at the misfortunes of others
We have all known people who had no greater enjoyment than to see an acquaintance taken down. The misfortune of a neighbour was a real blessing to these miserable creatures, and I have not the least doubt but that among people who knew St. Paul there would be a man here and there envious of the great apostles gifts and usefulness, who would chuckle over the thorn in the flesh, who in his heart would rejoice at the suffering it caused the apostle. Yet who would not venture to express his secret exultation, but would go about saying, Oh, that Saul of Tarsus needs it all. Very conceited man; do him a great deal of good. It will take him down; teach him sense; and he needs very much to be taught that! Cannot you imagine how the envious, malicious, tattling gossips at Corinth would go about from house to house saying that kind of thing? Now, let none of us here give way to this wicked and contemptible fashion of thinking and talking (A. K. H. Boyd, D. D.)
Lest I should be exalted above measure.--
Pride and its antidote
I. The danger to which the apostle felt himself exposed, is that of being exalted overmuch, or lifted up by pride. In one aspect of the case it seems that of all mere men St. Paul was the least likely to fall into this snare of the devil. He was not accustomed to boast of things without measure (2Co_10:12-13). I have learned, in whatsoever estate I am, therewith to be content, etc. (Php_4:11-13). The life he lived, the suffering he bore, and the shame and reproach that were cast upon him, are not the things which generally cause men to be puffed up. But, in another aspect, it is easy to discover in the apostle a disposition to think of himself more highly than he ought to think. His spirit, though patient, serene, and humble, when under the influence of Gods grace, was naturally proud and ambitious. His training, too, had fostered this spirit. His educational attainments were in no way despicable. And further, if we think of the manner in which some churches received him--as an angel from heaven; the profound respect in which he was held by some of his fellow-Christians, so that if it had been possible, they would have plucked out their very eyes, and given them to him; his equality with the chiefest of the apostles, and his almost unparalleled success in preaching the gospel, we shall have little difficulty in conceiving how Paul would be liable to regard himself as superior to most men of his day. This danger arose not from either of the things we have already named, as likely to produce self-glory, but from the abundance of the revelations God had given to him. And is it not so with ourselves? Our greatest successes are our greatest temptations. Failure humbles us.
II. Gods design in giving Paul a thorn in the flesh was to teach him a lesson of humility. Humility is the antithesis of pride, and it is also its antidote. It is a grace of the gospel of the choicest quality, and its cultivation is obligatory on all Christians. And yet humility is so repugnant to human nature, is a virtue so difficult of practice, that it seldom occupies its proper place, even in the heart of renewed man. Hence God has to humble us oftentimes by some painful trial. (T. Turner.)
Affliction an antidote to temptation
I. The design of the temptation. The design of this temptation was to subdue the risings of spiritual pride, to which the apostle, from his peculiar circumstances, was peculiarly liable. No one will understand me as saying that this was the design of the tempter. Respecting him, as of Sennacherib of old, it might be remarked, Howbeit he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy and cut off. There is no recorded incident which conveys such a significant intimation of the utter depravity of the heart of man as the one under consideration. Here was a servant and apostle of our Lord Jesus Christ made a new creature in Christ Jesus, and living under the constant operation of the indwelling Spirit; yet with so much of remaining corruption, that an extraordinary measure of Divine favour would have provoked the pride and naughtiness of his heart but for the gracious provision made to counteract the danger. It teaches us that human nature, fallen nature, is the same under all circumstances. Subject it to what process you choose--put it into what alembic you may--translate it, if you will, in a chariot of fire into the third heaven--yet until that wondrous hour arrives, when we shall all be changed, and this corruptible shall put on incorruption, it will remain corrupt to the last. Let it not be supposed that it requires an equal amount of attainment and privilege to incur an equal liability to the suggestions of the evil one. Alas! which of us does not know that it needs no elevation into the third heaven to exalt us above measure? A little knowledge soon puffeth up.
II. To investigate its nature.
1. A thorn;
2. The messenger of Satan; and--
3. Designed and calculated to buffet the apostles spirit.
In the text he characterises this temptation as a messenger of Satan. And here the remark seems extorted, How few there are who realise the active agency of the prince of the power of the air in the same sense and to the same extent as did Christ and His apostles--now sowing tares in the Church--now sifting the apostles--now entering into Judas--now assaulting the Son of God Himself! But this is not the particular feature in his work of evil which the text suggests. He is represented as interfering (doubtless by sufferance of the Most High) with the daily providences, and outward circumstances, and bodily condition of our life.
III. What was his resource in this time of need? See wherein consists the real benefit of sanctified affliction. It sends you to your knees.
IV. Let us now notice the answer given to the apostles prayer.
V. Such was the apostles case, and his after-estimate of the whole dispensation was to that effect. Blessed thorn which occasions the power of Christ to rest upon me! Infinite strength sheltering perfect weakness. How grand, how comforting, how transporting the idea! God protecting a worm of the earth; nay, and strengthening it with might. Let me suggest this brief exhortation in conclusion.
1. Adore the gracious providence and consummate skill of the Most High in thus from seeming evil still educing good. Thus the Lord leads captivity captive, and Satan himself is in a manner transformed into an angel of light.
2. Lastly, learn to form a proper estimate of your afflictions, and to believe that, painful as it may be, the thorn which mortifies your pride, sends you to the throne of grace, and issues in praise, must be an unspeakable blessing. (C. F. Childe, M. A.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v11 Chapter 27
Chapter 27
NOT YOURS, BUT YOU.- 2Co_12:11-21 (R.V)
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EXPOSITORS differ widely in characterising the three or four brief paragraphs into which this passage may be divided:
(1) 2Co_12:11-13;
(2) 2Co_12:14-15, and 2Co_12:16-18;
(3) 2Co_12:19-21.
What is clear is, that we feel in it the ground-swell of the storm that has raged through the last two chapters, and that it is not till the beginning of 2Co_13:1-14. that the Apostle finally escapes from this, and takes up an authoritative and decisive attitude to the Corinthians. When he does reach Corinth, it will not be to explain and justify his own conduct, either against rivals or those whom rivals have misled, but to take prompt and vigorous action against disorders in the life of the Church.
(1) A review of what he has just written leads to a burst of indignant remonstrance. "I have become foolish." The emphasis is on the verb, not on the adjective; it is the painful fact that the eleventh chapter of Second Corinthians is a thing that no wise man would have written if he had been left to himself and his wisdom. Paul, who was a wise man, felt this, and it stung him. He resented the compulsion which was put upon him by the ingratitude and faithlessness of the Corinthians. The situation ought to have been exactly reversed. When he was defamed by strangers, then they, who knew him, instead of hearkening to the calumniators, ought to have stood up in his defense. But they basely left him to defend himself, to plead his own cause, to become a fool by "glorying." This kind of compulsion should never be put upon a good man, especially a man to whom, under God, we ourselves have been deeply indebted. The services he has rendered constitute a claim on our loyalty, and it is a duty of affection to guard his character against disparagement and malice.
Paul, in his deep consciousness of being wronged, presses home the charge against the Corinthians. They had every reason, he tells them, to act as his advocates. When he was among them, he was in nothing inferior to the "superlative" Apostles-this is his last flout at the Judaist interlopers-nothing though he was. The signs that prove a man to be an apostle were wrought among them (the passive expression keeps his agency in the background) in all patience, by signs and wonders and mighty deeds. Their suspicions of him, their willingness to listen to insinuations against him, after such an experience, were unpardonable. He can only think of one "sign of the apostle" which was not wrought among them by his means, of one point in which he had made them inferior to the other Churches: he had not burdened them with his support. They were the spoilt children of the apostolic family; and he begs them, with bitter irony, to forgive him this wrong. If they had only been converted by a man who stood upon his rights!
"The signs of an apostle" are frequently, referred to in Pauls Epistles, and are of various kinds. By far the most important, and the most frequently insisted on, is success in evangelistic work. He who converts men and founds Churches has the supreme and final attestation of apostleship, as Paul conceives it. It is to this he appeals in 1Co_9:2 & 2Co_3:1-3. In the passage before us Calvin makes "patience" a sign - primum signum nominat patientiam. Patience is certainly a characteristic Christian virtue, and it is magnificently exercised in the apostolic life; but it is not peculiarly apostolic. Patience in the passage before us, "every kind of patience," rather brings before our minds the conditions under which Paul did his apostolic work. Discouragements of every description, bad health, suspicion, dislike, contempt, moral apathy and moral license-the weight of all these pressed upon him heavily, but he bore up under them, and did not suffer them to break his spirit or to arrest his labors. His endurance was a match for them all, and the power of Christ that was in him broke forth in spite of them in apostolic signs. There were conversions, in the first place; but there were also what he calls here "signs [in a narrower sense], and wonders, and mighty deeds." This is an express claim, like that made in Act_15:12, Rom_15:19, to have wrought what we call miracles. The three words represent miracles under three different aspects: they are "signs" (σημεῖα), as addressed to mans intelligence, and conveying a spiritual meaning; they are "wonders" (τέρατα), as giving a shock to feeling, and moving nature in those depths which sleep through common experience, and they are "mighty works" or "powers" (δυνάμεις), as arguing in him who works them a more than human efficiencyd. But no doubt the main character they bore in the Apostles mind was that of χαρίσματα, or gifts of grace, which God ministered to the Church by His Spirit. It is natural for an unbeliever to misunderstand even New Testament miracles, because he wishes to conceive them, as it were, in vacuo, or in relation to the laws of nature; in the New Testament itself they are conceived in relation to the Holy Ghost. Even Jesus is said in the Gospels to have cast out devils by the Spirit of God; and when Paul wrought "signs and wonders and powers," it was in carrying out his apostolic work graced by the same Spirit. What things he had done in Corinth we have no means of knowing, but the Corinthians knew; and they knew that these things had no arbitrary or accidental character, but were the tokens of a Christian and an apostle.
(2) In the second paragraph Paul turns abruptly (ιδου) ("behold!") from the past to the future. "This is the third time I am ready to come to you, and I will not burden you." The first clause has the same ambiguity in Greek as in English; it is impossible to tell from the words alone whether he had been already twice, or only once, in Corinth. Other considerations decide, I think, that he had been twice; but of course these cannot affect the construction of this verse: for the third time he is in a state of readiness-this is all the words will yield. But when he makes the new visit, whether it be his third or only his second, one thing he has decided: he will act on the same principle as before, and decline to be a burden to them. He does not speak of it boastfully now, as in 2Co_11:10, for his adversaries have passed out of view, but in one of the most movingly tender passages in the whole Bible. "I will not lie on you like a benumbing weight, for I seek not yours, but you." It is not his own interest which brings him to Corinth again, but theirs; it is not avarice which impels him, but love. In a sense, indeed, love makes the greater claim of the two; it is far more to demand the heart than to ask for money. Yet the greater claim is the less selfish, indeed is the purely unselfish one; for it can only be really made by one who gives all that he demands. Pauls own heart was pledged to the Corinthians; and when he said "I seek you," he did not mean that he sought to make a party of them, or a faction, in the interest of his own ambition, but that the one thing he cared for was the good of their souls. Nor in saying so does he claim to be doing anything unusual or extraordinary. It is only what becomes him as their father in Christ. {1Co_4:15} "I seek you; for the children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children." Filial duty, of course, is not denied here; Paul is simply bringing himself as the spiritual father of the Corinthians under the general rule of nature that "love descends rather than ascends." If this seems a hard saying to a childs heart, it is at least true that it descends before it ascends. It all begins from God: in a family, it all begins from the parents. The primary duty of love is parental care; and nothing is more unnatural, though at a certain level it is common enough, than the desire of parents to make money out of their children as quickly and as plentifully as possible, without considering the ulterior interests of the children themselves. This kind of selfishness is very transparent, and is very naturally avenged by ingratitude, and the Apostle for his part renounces it. "I," he exclaims, with all the emphasis in his power-"I have more than a natural fathers love for you. I will with all gladness spend, yes, and be spent to the uttermost, for your souls! I will give what I have, yes, and all that I am, that you may be profited." And then he checks that rush of affection, and dams up the overflowing passion of his heart in the abrupt poignant question: "If I love you more abundantly, am I loved less?"
This is not the first passage in the Epistle, nor, near as we are to the end, is it the last, in which Paul shows us the true spirit of the Christian pastor. "Not yours, but you," is the motto of every minister who has learned of Christ; and the noble words of 2Co_12:15, "I will very gladly spend and be spent to the last for your souls," recall more nearly than any other words in Scripture the law by which our Lord Himself lived-not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many. Here, surely, is a sign of apostleship-an unmistakable mark of the man who is specially called to continue Christs work. That work cannot be done at all except in the spirit of Him who inaugurated it, and though love like Pauls, and love like Christs, may be mocked and trampled on, it is the only power which has the right to speak in Christs name. The joy of sacrifice thrills through the Apostles words, and it is joy in the Holy Ghost; it is a fellowship with Christ in the very life of His life that lifts Paul, for the moment, to the heavenly places. This is the spirit in which wrong is to be met, and suspicion, calumny, and contempt; it is in this, if at all, that we can be more than conquerors. Nature says, "Stand upon your rights; vindicate your position; insist on having all that you conceive to be your due"; but love says, "Spend and be spent, and spare not till all is gone; life itself is not too much to give that love may triumph over wrong."
It is not possible to write long as Paul writes in these two verses (2Co_12:14-15). The tension is too great both for him and for his readers. With εστω δε-"But be it so"-he descends from this height. He writes in the first person, but he is plainly repeating what he assumes others will say. "Very well, then, let that pass," is the answer of his enemies to his friends when that passionate protestation is read. "He did not himself prove burdensome to us, but being crafty he brought us into his net by guile. He exploited the Church in his own interest by means of his agents." This charge the Apostle meets with a downright denial; he can appeal to the knowledge which the Corinthians themselves possess of the manner in which his agents have conducted themselves. He had no doubt had occasion, far oftener than we know, to communicate with so important and restless a Church; and he challenges the Corinthians to say that a single one of those whom he had sent had taken advantage of them. He instances-perhaps as the last of his deputies, who had but just returned from Corinth when he wrote this letter; perhaps as the one on whom scandal had chosen to fasten - his "partner" and "fellow-laborer toward them," Titus; and he refers to an unknown brother who had accompanied him. They cannot mean to say (μητι) that Titus took advantage of them? "Walked we not in the same Spirit?" A modern reader naturally makes "spirit" subjective, and takes it as equivalent to "the same moral temper or principle"; an early Christian reader would more probably think of the Holy Spirit as that which ruled in Paul and Titus alike. In any case the same Spirit led to the same conduct; they walked in the same self-denying path, and scrupulously abstained from burdening the Corinthians for their support.
(3) We feel the meanness of all this, and are glad when the Apostle finally turns his back on it. It is an indignity to be compelled even to allude to such things. And the worst is, that no care a man can take will prevent people from misunderstanding his indignant protest, and from assuming that he is really on his trial before them, and not improbably compromised. Pauls mind is made up to leave the Corinthians no excuse for such misunderstanding and presumption. In 2Co_12:19 he reads their ignoble thought: "Ye have long been thinking"-i.e., all through the last two chapters, and, indeed, more or less all through the Epistle; see 2Co_3:1 -"that we are making our defense at your bar. Far from it: at Gods bar we speak in Christ." He will not endure, with his visit to Corinth close at hand, that there should be any misapprehension as to their relations. His responsibility as a Christian man is not to them, but to God; He is the Master to whom he stands or falls; it is He alone to whom he has to vindicate his life. The Corinthians had been seating themselves in imagination on the tribunal, and they are summarily set on the floor. But Paul does not wish to be rude or unkind. "You are not my judges, certainly" he seems to say, "but all I have said and done, beloved, all I say and do, is for your building up in Christian life. My heart is with you in it all, and I sincerely intend your good." We cannot sufficiently admire the combination in the Apostle, or rather the swift alternation, of all those intellectual and emotional qualities that balance each other in a strong living character. He can be at once trenchant and tender; inexorable in the maintenance of a principle, and infinitely sympathetic and considerate in his treatment of persons. We see all his qualities illustrated here.
Their edification is the governing thought on which the last verses of the chapter turn, and on which eventually the whole Epistle rests. {see 2Co_13:10} It is because he is interested in their edification that he thinks with misgivings of the journey in prospect. "I fear lest by any means when I come to find you not such as I would, and on my part be found of you not such as ye would." What these two fears imply is unfolded in due order in the remainder of the letter. The Corinthians, such as Paul would not have them, are depicted in 2Co_12:20-21; Paul, in a character in which the Corinthians would prefer not to see him, comes forward in 2Co_13:1-10. It is with the first only of these two fears, the bad condition of the Corinthian Church, that we are here concerned. This first fear has two grounds. The first is the prevalence of sins which may perhaps be summarized as sins of self-will. Strife, jealousy, passions, factions and low factious arts, back-bitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults: such is the catalogue. It illustrates what has been well described as "the carnality of religious contention." Almost all the sins here enumerated are directly connected with the existence of parties and party feeling in the Church. They are of a kind which has disgraced the Church all through its history, and the exceeding sinfulness of which is not yet recognized by the great mass of professing Christians. People do not consider that the Church, as a visible society, more or less naturalized in the world, is as capable as any other society of offering a career to ambition, or of furnishing a theatre for the talents and the energies of self-seeking men; and they have a vague idea that the willfulness, the intriguing and factious arts, the jealousy and conceit of men, are better things when put to the service of the Church than when employed in mere selfishness. But they are not. They are the very same, and they are peculiarly odious when enlisted in His service who was meek and lowly in heart, and who gave Himself for men. Pauls first list of sins is only too life like, and the fear grounded on it is one which many a modern minister can share. The second list is made up of what might be called, in contrast with sins of self-will, sins of self-indulgence-"uncleanness, fornication, and lasciviousness that they wrought." Both together make up what the Apostle calls the works of the flesh. Both together are the direct opposite of those fruits of the spirit in which the true life of the Church consists. Paul writes as if he were more alarmed about the sins of the latter class. He puts μη ("lest") instead of μηπως ("lest by any means": 2Co_12:20), marking thus the climax, and something like the, certainty, of his sad apprehension. I fear, he says, "lest when I come again my God should humble me before you"-or, perhaps "in connection with you." Nothing could more bow down a true and loving heart like Pauls than to see a Church that he had regarded as the seal of his apostleship-a congregation of men "washed, sanctified, and justified"-wallowing again in the mire of sensual sins. He had been proud of them, had boasted of them, had given thanks to God on their behalf: how it must have crushed him to think that his labor on them had come to this! Yet he writes instinctively "my God." This humiliation does not come to him without his Father; there is a divine dispensation in it, as far as he is concerned, and he submits to it as such. He dare not think of it as a personal insult; he dare not think of the sinners as if they had offended against him. He fears he will have to mourn over numbers of those who have before sinned, and who will not have repented of these sensualities before he reaches Corinth. In 2Co_5:2 of the First Epistle he sums up his condemnation of the moral laxity of the Church in the presence of such evils in the words: "Ye did not mourn." He himself will not be able to avoid mourning: his heart grows heavy within him as he thinks of what he must see before long. This, again, is the spirit of the true pastor. Selfish anger has nothing healing in it, nor has wounded pride; it is not for any man, however good or devoted, to feel that he is entitled to resent it, as a personal wrong, when men fall into sin. He is not entitled to resent it, no matter how much he may have spent, or how freely he may have spent himself, upon them; but he is bound to bewail it. He is bound to recognize in it, so far as he himself is free from responsibility, a dispensation of God intended to make him humble; and in all humility and love he is bound to plead with the lapsed, not his own cause, but Gods. This is the spirit in which Paul confronts the sad duties awaiting him at Corinth, and in this again we see "the signs of the apostle." The two catalogues of sins with which this chapter closes remind us, by way of contrast, of the two characteristic graces of Christianity: self-will or party spirit, in all its forms, is opposed to brotherly love, and self-indulgence, in all its forms, to personal purity. There is much in this Epistle which would be called by some people theological and transcendent; but no one knew better than Paul that, though Christianity must be capable of an intellectual construction, it is not an intellectual system in essence, but a new moral life. He was deeply concerned, as we have repeatedly seen, that the Corinthians should think right thoughts about Christ and the Gospel; but he was more than concerned, he was filled with grief, fear, and shame, when he thought of the vices of temper and of sensuality that prevailed among them. These went to the root of Christianity, and if they could not be destroyed it must perish. Let us turn our eyes from them to the purity and love that they obscure, and lift up our hearts to these as the best things to which God has called us in the fellowship of His Son.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv5–12 5. Of such an one will I glory. One…
5. Of such an one will I glory. One so favored had ground for boasting, but of himself personally he will not glory, save in his infirmities. See note on 11:30. While he glories of such an one, if he glories of himself it will be in his weaknesses.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v8 2 Corinthians
2 Corinthians
STRENGTH IN WEAKNESS
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2Co 12:8-9
This very remarkable page in the autobiography of the Apostle shows us that he, too, belonged to the great army of martyrs who, with hearts bleeding and pierced through and through with a dart, yet did their work for God. It is of little consequence what his thorn in the flesh may have been. The original word suggests very much heavier sorrow than the metaphor of ‘a thorn’ might imply. It really seems to mean not a tiny bit of thorn that might lie half concealed in the finger tip, but one of those hideous stakes on which the cruel punishment of impalement used to be inflicted. And Paul’s thought is, not that he has a little, trivial trouble to bear, but that he is, as it were, forced quivering upon that tremendous torture.
Unquestionably, what he means is some bodily ailment or other. The hypothesis that the ‘thorn in the flesh’ was the sting of the animal nature inciting him to evil is altogether untenable, because such a thorn could never have been left when the prayer for its removal was earnestly presented; nor could it ever have been, when left, an occasion for glorifying. Manifestly it was no weakness removable by his own effort, no incapacity for service which in any manner approximated to being a fault, but purely and simply some infliction from God’s hand {though likewise capable of being regarded as a ‘messenger of Satan’} which hindered him in his work, and took down any proud flesh and danger of spiritual exaltation in consequence of the largeness of his religious privileges.
Our text sets before us three most instructive windings, as it were, of the stream of thoughts that passed through the Apostle’s mind, in reference to this burden that he had to carry, and may afford wholesome contemplation for us to-day. There is, first, the instinctive shrinking which took refuge in prayer. Then there is the insight won by prayer into the sustaining strength for, and the purposes of, the thorn that was not to be plucked out. And then, finally, there is the peace of acquiescence, and a will that accepts--not the inevitable, but the loving.
I. First of all we see the instinctive shrinking from that which tortured the flesh, which takes refuge in prayer.
There is a wonderful, a beautiful, and, I suppose, an intentional parallel between the prayers of the servant and of the Master. Paul’s petitions are the echo of Gethsemane. There, under the quivering olives, in the broken light of the Paschal moon, Jesus ‘thrice’ prayed that the cup might pass from Him. And here the servant, emboldened and instructed by the example of the Master, ‘thrice’ reiterates his human and natural desire for the removal of the pain, whatever it was, which seemed to him so to hinder the efficiency and the fulness, as it certainly did the joy, of his service.
But He who prayed in Gethsemane was He to whom Paul addressed his prayer. For, as is almost always the case in the New Testament, ‘the Lord’ here evidently means Christ, as is obvious from the connection of the answer to the petition with the Apostle’s final confidence and acquiescence. For the answer was, ‘My strength is made perfect in weakness’; and the Apostle’s conclusion is, ‘Most gladly will I glorify in infirmity,’ that the strength or ‘power _of Christ_ may rest upon me.’ Therefore the prayer with which we have to deal here is a prayer offered to Jesus, who prayed in Gethsemane, and to whom we can bring our petitions and our desires.
Notice how this thought of prayer directed to the Master Himself helps to lead us deep into the sacredest and most blessed characteristics of prayer. It is only telling Christ what is in our hearts. Oh, if we lived in the true understanding of what prayer really is--the emptying out of our inmost desire and thoughts before our Brother, who is likewise our Lord--questions as to what it was permissible to pray for, and what it was not permissible to pray for, would be irrelevant, and drop away of themselves. If we had a less formal notion of prayer, and realised more thoroughly what it was--the speech of a confiding heart to a sympathising Lord--then everything that fills our hearts would be seen to be a fitting object of prayer. If anything is large enough to interest me, it is not too small to be spoken about to Him.
So the question, which is often settled upon very abstract and deep grounds that have little to do with the matter--the question as to whether prayer for outward blessings is permissible--falls away of itself. If I am to talk to Jesus Christ about everything that concerns me, am I to keep my thumb upon all that great department and be silent about it? One reason why our prayers are often so unreal is, because they do not fit our real wants, nor correspond to the thoughts that are busy in our minds at the moment of praying. Our hearts are full of some small matter of daily interest, and when we kneel down not a word about it comes to our lips. Can that be right?
The difference between the different objects of prayer is not to be found in the rejection of all temporal and external, but in remembering that there are two sets of things to be prayed about, and over one set must ever be written ‘If it be Thy will,’ and over the other it need not be written, because we are sure that the granting of our wishes _is_ His will. We know about the one that ‘if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us.’ That may seem to be a very poor and shrunken kind of hope to give a man, that if his prayer is in conformity with the previous determination of the divine will, it will be answered. But it availed for the joyful confidence of that Apostle who saw deepest into the conditions and the blessedness of the harmony of the will of God and of man. But about the other set we can only say, ‘Not my will, but Thine be done.’ With that sentence, not as a formula upon our lips but deep in our hearts, let us take everything into His presence--thorns and stakes, pinpricks and wounds out of which the life-blood is ebbing--let us take them all to Him, and be sure that we shall take none of them in vain.
So then we have the Person to whom the prayer is addressed, the subjects with which it is occupied, and the purpose to which it is directed. ‘Take away the burden’ was the Apostle’s petition; but it was a mistaken petition and, therefore, unanswered.
II. That brings me to the second of the windings, as I have ventured to call them, of this stream--viz. the insight into the source of strength for, and the purpose of, the thorn that could not be taken away. The Lord said unto me, ‘My grace is sufficient for thee. For My strength’ {where the word ‘My’ is a supplement, but a necessary one} ‘is made perfect in weakness.’
The answer is, in form and in substance, a gentle refusal of the form of the petition, but it is a more than granting of its essence. For the best answer to such a prayer, and the answer which a true man means when he asks, ‘Take away the burden,’ need not be the external removal of the pressure of the sorrow, but the infusing of power to sustain it. There are two ways of lightening a burden, one is diminishing its actual weight, the other is increasing the strength of the shoulder that bears it. And the latter is God’s way, is Christ’s way, of dealing with us.
Now mark that the answer which this faithful prayer receives is no communication of anything fresh, but it is the opening of the man’s eyes to see that already he has all that he needs. The reply is not, ‘I _will_ give thee grace sufficient,’ but ‘My grace’ {which thou hast now} ‘is sufficient for thee.’ That grace is given and possessed by the sorrowing heart at the moment when it prays. Open your eyes to see what you have, and you will not ask for the load to be taken away. Is not that always true? Many a heart is carrying some heavy weight; perhaps some have an incurable sorrow, some are stricken by disease that they know can never be healed, some are aware that the shipwreck has been total, and that the sorrow that they carry to-day will lie down with them in the dust. Be it so! ‘My grace {not shall be, but} _is_ sufficient for thee.’ And what thou hast already in thy possession is enough for all that comes storming against thee of disease, disappointment, loss, and misery. Set on the one side all possible as well as all actual weaknesses, burdens, pains, and set on the other these two words--’My grace,’ and all these dwindle into nothingness and disappear. If troubled Christian men would learn what they have, and would use what they already possess, they would less often beseech Him with vain petitions to take away their blessings which are in the thorns in the flesh. ‘My grace is sufficient.’
How modestly the Master speaks about what He gives! ‘Sufficient’? Is not there a margin? Is there not more than is wanted? The overplus is ‘exceeding abundant,’ not only ‘above what we ask or think,’ but far more than our need. ‘Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not _sufficient_ that every one may take a little,’ says Sense. Omnipotence says, ‘Bring the few small loaves and fishes unto Me’; and Faith dispensed them amongst the crowd; and Experience ‘gathered up of the fragments that remained’ more than there had been when the multiplication began. So the grace utilised increases; the gift grows as it is employed. ‘Unto him that hath shall be given.’ And the ‘sufficiency’ is not a bare adequacy, just covering the extent of the need, with no overlapping margin, but is large beyond expectation, desire, or necessity; so leading onwards to high hopes and a wider opening of the open mouths of our need that the blessing may pour in.
The other part of this great answer, that the Christ from Heaven spoke in or to the praying spirit of this not disappointed, though refused, Apostle, unveiled the purpose of the sorrow, even as the former part had disclosed the strength to bear it. For, says He, laying down therein the great law of His kingdom in all departments and in all ways, ‘My strength is made perfect’--that is, of course, perfect in its manifestation or operations, for it is perfect in itself already. ‘My strength is made perfect in weakness.’ It works in and through man’s weakness.
God works with broken reeds. If a man conceits himself to be an iron pillar, God can do nothing with or by him. All the self-conceit and confidence have to be taken out of him first. He has to be brought low before the Father can use him for His purposes. The lowlands hold the water, and, if only the sluice is open, the gravitation of His grace does all the rest and carries the flood into the depths of the lowly heart.
His strength loves to work in weakness, only the weakness must be conscious, and the conscious weakness must have passed into conscious dependence. There, then, you get the law for the Church, for the works of Christianity on the widest scale, and in individual lives. Strength that conceits itself to be such is weakness; weakness that knows itself to be such is strength. The only true source of Power, both for Christian work and in all other respects, is God Himself; and our strength is ours but by derivation from Him. And the only way to secure that derivation is through humble dependence, which we call faith in Jesus Christ. And the only way by which that faith in Jesus Christ can ever be kindled in a man’s soul is through the sense of his need and emptiness. So when we know ourselves weak, we have taken the first step to strength; just as, when we know ourselves sinners, we have taken the first step to righteousness; just as in all regions the recognition of the doleful fact of our human necessity is the beginning of the joyful confidence in the glad, triumphant fact of the divine fulness. All our hollownesses, if I may so say, are met with His fulness that fits into them. It only needs that a man be aware of that which he is, and then turn himself to Him who is all that he is not, and then into his empty being will flow rejoicing the whole fulness of God. ‘My strength is made perfect in weakness.’
III. Lastly, mark the calm final acquiescence in the loving necessity of continued sorrow.
‘Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmity that the power of Christ may rest upon me.’ The will is entirely harmonised with Christ’s. The Apostle begins with instinctive shrinking, he passes onwards to a perception of the purpose of his trial and of the sustaining grace; and he comes now to acquiescence which is not passivity, but glad triumph. He is more than submissive, he gladly glories in his infirmity in order that the power of Christ may ‘spread a tabernacle over’ him. ‘It is good for me that I have been afflicted,’ said the old prophet. Paul says, in a yet higher note of concord with God’s will, ‘I am glad that I sorrow. I rejoice in weakness, because it makes it easier for me to cling, and, clinging, I am strong, and conquer evil.’ Far better is it that the sting of our sorrow should be taken away, by our having learned what it is for, and having bowed to it, than that it should be taken away by the external removal which we sometimes long for. A grief, a trial, an incapacity, a limitation, a weakness, which we use as a means of deepening our sense of dependence upon Him, is a blessing, and not a sorrow. And if we would only go out into the world trying to interpret its events in the spirit of this great text, we should less frequently wonder and weep over what sometimes seem to us the insoluble mysteries of the sorrows of ourselves and of other men. They are all intended to make it more easy for us to realise our utter hanging upon Him, and so to open our hearts to receive more fully the quickening influences of His omnipotent and self-sufficing grace.
Here, then, is a lesson for those who have to carry some cross and know they must carry it throughout life. It will be wreathed with flowers if you accept it. Here is a lesson for all Christian workers. Ministers of the Gospel especially should banish all thoughts of their own cleverness, intellectual ability, culture, sufficiency for their work, and learn that only when they are emptied can they be filled, and only when they know themselves to be nothing are they ready for God to work through them. And here is a lesson for all who stand apart from the grace and power of Jesus Christ as if they needed it not. Whether you know it or not, you are a broken reed; and the only way of your ever being bound up and made strong is that you shall recognise your sinfulness, your necessity, your abject poverty, your utter emptiness, and come to Him who is righteousness, riches, fulness, and say, ‘Because I am weak, be Thou my strength.’ The secret of all noble, heroic, useful, happy life lies in the paradox, ‘When I am weak, then am I strong,’ and the secret of all failures, miseries, hopeless losses, lies in its converse, ‘When I am strong, then am I weak.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain On vv5–12 On behalf of such a one will I glory:…
On behalf of such a one will I glory: but on mine own behalf I will not glory, save in my weaknesses . [Here Paul speaks of an experience of his, but declines to name himself, or use the first person, lest he might be thought to be glorying in his own exaltation. He had been caught up into paradise, or the secret place of the Almighty. This he calls the third heaven, for in the Jewish estimation the air was the first heaven, the region of the sun, moon and stars was the second heaven. Somewhere beyond the stars was the abode of the Almighty. He was miraculously drawn up into heaven, but whether his whole personality went thither, or whether merely that part of him (his spiritual nature) which was suited to comprehend and enjoy heaven, he could not tell. While here he had heard words which it was not lawful for him to try to interpret by the insufficient and consequently misleading worth of earth. He tells this event, but it was an honor so much above his deserving that he avoids even such a method of telling it as might be construed to be boastful. If he gloried on his own behalf, it would still be in his weaknesses. As Paul wrote this epistle in A. D. 57, the deduction of fourteen years would bring us to A. D. 43, the season when Paul was in Antioch.]
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv7, 9 It has been conjectured that Paul’s "thorn in the…
thorn
It has been conjectured that Paul’s "thorn in the flesh" was chronic ophthalmia, inducing bodily weakness, and a repulsive appearance Gal 4:15; 1Co 2:3; 1Co 2:4; 2Co 10:10. This cannot be positively known, and the reserve of Scripture is as sure a mark of inspiration as its revelations. Paul’s particular "thorn" is not described that his consolations may avail for all to who any thorn is given.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv6, 11 Unusual tribulations:
Unusual tribulations:
v. 6. For though I would desire to glory, I shall not be a fool; for I will say the truth; but now I forbear, lest any man should think of me above that which he seeth me to be, or that he heareth of me.
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v. 7. And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan, to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.
v. 8. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from me.
v. 9. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee; for My strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
v. 10. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then am I strong.
Paul implies that there are other matters, labors and experiences, which he might well make subjects of boasting: For if I should want to boast, I shall not be foolish, for the truth I should speak. Without becoming guilty of folly and madness, and with a full and proper regard for the truth, he could make statements which would well serve as a basis for boasting. Note: If occasion demand? that self-glory must be resorted to, then the folly is not his that asserts the truth, but his that rises against it. But for his own person Paul here forbears, lest any man should make an estimate of him above that which he sees him to be or hears from him. He wants the facts of his laborious and painful life in the service of the Gospel to speak for themselves. On the basis of what the Corinthians saw in him, of what they know of him and of his activity as the Lord’s apostle, he wants to be judged and esteemed. A true servant of Christ does not seek honor for himself, does not want to base the reputation he enjoys upon his own statements, but upon that which every right-minded person sees in him and hears of him. His one effort is always, in word and deed, to prove himself a faithful servant of Christ.
The Lord Himself aided the apostle in his efforts toward humility: And on account of the unusual greatness of the revelations, in order that I should not be exalted above measure, there is given to me a thorn in the flesh, an angel of Satan, that he might buffet me, that I should not be exalted overmuch. The construction of the sentence and the employment of a noun instead of an adjective, emphasizes the extraordinary nature of the special revelations which were vouchsafed to Paul. But he was a man, and as such he was subject to the temptations of the flesh; there was danger that he might haughtily and insolently exalt himself above others, since the Lord had distinguished him in this manner. Therefore there was given to him an infirmity, apparently a bodily infirmity of some kind, the exact nature of which has been a matter of much conjecture. It was in the nature of a thorn, not an impalement on a stake, as some would have it, but an acute, piercing agony, a vexatious irritation, which bore down upon some particular part of his body. It was not continuous in nature, but he was buffeted by it, it came upon him in blows. It was the messenger of Satan, who smote him as he did Job. Satan was permitted to send his messenger to trouble the body of God’s servant, in order that both body and soul might remain the Lord’s.
This tribulation was so fierce and agonizing that Paul sought relief: On account of this thing thrice I besought the Lord that it might depart from me. On three special occasions he had made this infirmity the object of a distinct petition, asking for its removal, and undoubtedly his pleading had been done in the right manner, in true faith, in firm confidence. An answer was finally given him, and though it was not that which his spirit longed for, it was sufficient to strengthen and console him in his affliction: And He said to me, Sufficient to thee My grace; for My strength in weakness is made perfect. It was an answer given at that time which retained its power to the present day. The apostle had, by faith, been given the grace of God in Jesus; that was his possession. He knew that God was his dear Father, whose every thought and action was in his interest. In the very midst of tribulation and affliction, therefore, he was taken care of in the best possible way; in his very weakness the power of the Lord had an opportunity to be effective. He must be brought to the point that he despairs of his own strength, abilities, and talents, then the Lord’s almighty power can use him as a tool and instrument of mercy. "What do you imagine this to be, dear Paul? My strength cannot be effective but only in your weakness. You must be weak, you must suffer, sigh, be miserable and weak for your own good, in order that you may finally, with suffering and battling, gain the victory and become a great apostle. If you will not be weak, My power can do nothing in you. If I am to be your Christ and you, in turn, are to be My apostle, then you must harmonize your weakness with My strength, your foolishness with My wisdom, My life with your death. " Mark: God leads His children in a remarkable manner especially such as He intends for important positions in His Church. By various proofs of His mercy and grace He strengthens them for the struggles and sufferings which they must undergo for His name’s sake. And yet he also sends them special trials and tribulations, in order that they do not become addicted to spiritual pride. As a true Father He thus educates and trains His children for the positions which they are to hold, always with the final aim that His name may be exalted.
And so Paul concludes this passage: Most gladly will I therefore rather glory in my weaknesses, in order that the power of Christ may rest on me, may spread its tent over me and live in me. Not a word of dissatisfaction and lamentation will the apostle utter in the midst of his sufferings, since he has the conviction of faith that the power of Christ is protecting him and helping him. He repeats: Wherefore I am fully satisfied in weaknesses, in insults, in necessities, in persecutions and distresses, for the sake of Christ; for when I am weak, then am I strong. Those very experiences which another person would regard as evidences of the wrath of God, his own various weaknesses, the insults which he had to bear, the necessities in which he found himself, the persecutions and distresses which came upon him from both Jews and Gentiles, Paul knows to be proofs of God’s fatherly devotion. The more he is conscious of his own weakness and inability in carrying out the work entrusted to him by the Lord, the more the strength of the Master can become effective in him. "St. Paul’s words are more than a verbal paradox: they express the fact, to which history abundantly testifies, that the world’s throne is the Cross."
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv6, 8, 11 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
As Paul defends his apostleship from God, he tells of the weakness that God gave him to keep him humble.
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General Information:
When Paul speaks of his "thorn in the flesh," he reveals that he is the man he spoke of in 2 Corinthians 12:2-5.
no one will think more of me than what he sees in me or hears from me
"no one will give me more credit than what he sees in me or hears from me"
because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations
"because those revelations were so much greater than anything anyone else had ever seen"
a thorn in the flesh was given to me
This can be stated in active form. AT: "God gave me a thorn in the flesh" or "God allowed me to have a thorn in the flesh" (See: Active or Passive)
a thorn in the flesh
Here Paul's physical problems are compared to a thorn piercing his flesh. AT: " an affliction" or "a physical problem" (See: Metaphor)
a messenger from Satan
"a servant of Satan"
to afflict me
"to torment me"
overly proud
"too proud"
translationWords
boast
fool
true
reveal
proud
flesh
messenger
Satan
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv5, 7, 11, 12 12:5-7a Paul could boast about his experience (12:2-4), but…
12:5-7a Paul could boast about his experience (12:2-4), but it was no source of confidence in his ministry. He never makes mystical experience a proof of his apostolic authority—his life and his message must be the proof. He instead boasts about his weaknesses (11:23-33).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.