Paul’s Thorn in the Flesh (An Excerpt from Chapter 5 of My Book: Rise and Be Healed)

In 2 Corinthians 12:1-7, Paul borrowed an Old Testament terminology to describe the circumstance he was going through. This terminology has become a ground for many to believe that sickness can be the will of God. In this chapter, we shall examine what it meant in the Old Testament and the context of its usage in the New Testament.

Old Testament Context: (a) Israel was commanded to drive out all the inhabitants of Canaan. ‘And ye shall divide the land by lot for an inheritance among your families: and to the more ye shall give the more inheritance, and to the fewer ye shall give the less inheritance: every man’s inheritance shall be in the place where his lot falleth; according to the tribes of your fathers ye shall inherit.But if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you; then it shall come to pass, that those which ye let remain of them shall be pricks in your eyes, and thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in the land wherein ye dwell.’ Numbers 33:54-55 (KJV).

(b) Disobedience (of the commandments above, by Israel) will lead to those inhabitants becoming thorns in their sides. ‘Side’ here means sides of their flesh or body; simply ‘thorns in their flesh.’ And it was a terminology that was used in reference to persistent problems. So, in the primitive world of Bible times, going into bushes for farming, war and hiding was common. Passing through them without elaborate clothing often left them with the possibility of thorns getting into their clothes or on their bodies. These thorns were quite irritating and provocative.

When I started out my life, I started out in a village. My dad worked in Ahmadu Bello University, in one of their research stations located in Mokwa, Niger State, Nigeria; but we stayed in the staff quarters located in one of its suburbs, called Ndayako. So, I grew up in the rural setting, the first eight years of my life. We played around as children and went into the bush to ease ourselves. We had a taste of primitive living. We used old car tyres as toys; and rolled them up and down the place. This took us several kilometers away from home at times, in nothing but our under wears as children.

Our parents were not worried about us being kidnapped, because Nigeria was very safe and secure at that time – the rural areas being even more secure. But we interacted with the bush a lot. Agricultural Science was a part of primary school curriculum in those days. If nothing, the Headmaster will make you work on the school farm; so I was used to working on the farm as a child. Going into the bush a lot as a child, one will discover that at times thorns get underneath one’s clothes or on the skin; and some of them were very tiny. They would hang on your skin and could not be easily removed. You had to pick them one after the other and they could be very irritating.

So, God commanded Israel as they were going into the land of Canaan, to drive out the nations already living there – to kill all of them, and wipe them out because they were ungodly nations given to idolatry and hence hated by God. This process would sanctify the land; otherwise, the ungodly nations would become pricks in their eyes. If you’ve ever had anything enter your eye, making you very uncomfortable, then you have an idea of what God was saying here. They represent irritating and nagging problems that persist and become difficult to solve. At times, it takes days for such dirt that enter the eye to be complete removed. God employed the language ‘prick in the eye’ and ‘thorn in the sides’ to describe what the nations would become, if Israel failed to wipe them out.

These nations were certainly not sicknesses and diseases. The Amorites did not represent cancer, the Perizzites did not stand for arthritis, nor were the Jebusites synonymous with rheumatism. The nations that preceded Israel in Canaan became constant problems, provoking and irritating them through idolatry, constant wars and oppression or enslavement. This was how they became pricks in their eyes and thorns in their sides. Before they entered into the Promised Land, they had made a covenant with God. The Law of Moses was delivered to them, giving them a different lifestyle. God was the object of their worship and the tabernacle was their place of worship.

By the time they arrived in the land of Canaan, they met people whose culture and lifestyle were different. They saw people bowing down to iron, stone and other things, and it was irritating to them. When I went to Malaysia to minister a few years ago, I saw so much idolatry. I had never been so irritated by idolatry in my entire life; I never saw so many idols. There was not a single restaurant we entered without seeing the image of Buddha somewhere in the corner.

There were images of Buddha on the roofs and ceilings – they were everywhere and this was quite irritating. This must have been how irritated the Israelites felt in the face of idolatry. There was idolatry and constant war in the land of Canaan. The ungodly nations fought against the Jews over and over again, and later they began to convert the Jews to their idolatry. They oppressed them at various times and enslaved them. Israel was to drive out all these nations, to prevent them from becoming thorns in their sides but they failed to do so.

The Apostle Paul uses this language in the New Testament. The confusion most times is because he said ‘thorn in the flesh.’ When people see flesh being used in the Bible, what comes to their minds is the body. However, you will also see in the Bible a reference to the ‘works of the flesh.’ They are not necessarily the works of the body. Resentment is something you feel in your soul and express in attitude, so it’s not necessarily the work of the body. The terminology ‘flesh’ simply speaks of the sense-ruled nature; or carnal mindset. Even the word ‘carnal’ used in 1 Corinthians 3 literally means meaty or fleshy in the Greek. Yet the things Paul described were not things that pertain to the body.

“For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?” 1 Corinthians 3:3 KJV. He described envy and strife as carnal because they are works of the flesh. And the reason why the Bible uses the word ‘flesh’ at times for such things is because the human body has five senses. And if you allow your life to be ruled by the information you get from your senses, then you’re described as carnal. There is a close association between the soul and the body, that’s why that language was employed. So when you see flesh being used in the Bible, you have to look at the context in which it is used to understand whether it’s referring to the body or to the soul. The idea that Paul’s thorn in the flesh was sickness is very far from the truth and contextually wrong. The devil uses the word of God to deceive and we need to be discerning at all times. Do not use the excuse of the so called thorn in the flesh of Paul to tolerate sicknesses and diseases. They are of the devil and must be resisted, not welcomed.

To be continued…