Listent to the audio of today’s Reflection:
II Corinthians 12:1-10
https://soundcloud.com/hapearce/reflection-for-june-12-2025
Paul’s Vision and His Thorn
I must go on boasting. Although there is nothing to be gained, I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord. 2 I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows. 3 And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows— 4 was caught up to paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell. 5 I will boast about a man like that, but I will not boast about myself, except about my weaknesses.6 Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say
7To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
We have been making it a practice, when the lectionary begins readings from one of Paul’s letters, to stop and talk about that letter in general. Today’s passage comes from Second Corinthians, but I’m not going to say a great deal about that letter, because we’ve mentioned it in past Reflections when we were talking about First Corinthians. Both letters were written by the apostle Paul to the congregation at Corinth, a congregation that was one of Paul’s “problem children,” torn by infighting and by factions that pledged allegiance to various Christian leaders.
In fact, you might remember me saying that the Bible scholars believe there were other letters to the Corinthians that did not survive to the present day.
Having said all that, today’s passage strikes me as one of the more interesting ones in Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians. In fact, some people think it’s the most interesting passage in all of Paul’s letters. It’s a passage that New Testament scholars have differing opinions about, and the truth is probably that there will never be complete agreement about what Paul is saying. But we can come to a pretty good guess, and there’s part of the reading that has a pretty clear message for us about our life of prayer.
Paul begins this part of his letter by telling about a man who was caught up to “the third heaven,” where he was given mysterious and inexpressible teachings. The apostle writes that he doesn’t know whether the man was actually transported to some other realm, or whether it was just a vision. Judging by the way Paul tells the story, it seems pretty clear that he is describing an experience he had personally.
To understand what Paul is getting at by relating this vision, we probably need to look back at some of the earlier parts of this letter. Paul was writing to a church in Corinth that had been visited by some other people – presumably other Jewish Christian leaders – who seem to have been making the case that they were spiritually superior to Paul. I say this because earlier in Second Corinthians, Paul had been taking some pains to defend his own leadership credentials, both his education and his record of service to the church.
Today’s passage seems like a continuation of the case Paul was making that he had been chosen and instructed by God for his ministry. Some of the leading New Testament scholars believe Paul was telling this story because the other spiritual leaders in Corinth had been claiming to have had mystical religious visions as a way of building up their own credibility. So Paul seems to be saying he’s had this kind of experience as well.
The fact that Paul tells the story in the third person seems odd to us, but the scholars say that was a common practice at the time, especially if you didn’t want to seem like you were boasting. But it’s hard to escape the feeling that Paul was relating a personal experience.
Paul says he was taken up the “to third heaven,” which was understood at the time to be the highest heaven. Paul says “inexpressible” things were revealed to him there, things he was forbidden to tell. Although we don’t get to know what Paul was shown there, it seems that it was an experience of great joy, because Paul says that he was in “paradise.”
Paul also says that because of this powerful mystical experience, it would have been possible for him to become “conceited.” So to prevent that, Paul says that God gave him “a thorn in [his] flesh.” Throughout the history of the church, people have put forth all kinds of theories about what this thorn in Paul’s flesh might have been – in fact, an impressive variety of physical, psychological and spiritual maladies have been suggested. But the truth is that nobody knows, and probably no one ever will.
The best guess is probably that Paul suffered from some form of chronic illness that made him feel weak and kept him in pain. It was apparently serious enough to make his missionary work difficult.
The most important thing about this passage is probably what Paul says about his response to this thorn in his flesh. Paul says that he prayed three times for this thorn to be removed – in fact he says that he “pleaded with the Lord.” But he reports that God responded by saying, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Paul seems to have bought into this idea of power in weakness, because he says that as a servant of Jesus, “when I am weak, then I am strong.”
I have to say honestly that I don’t accept the idea that if someone suffers a disability or illness, then God has intentionally chosen to inflict that particular suffering on that particular person. But that might have happened in the case of the apostle Paul, because he had been called to a unique role in salvation history. The important part is that God continued to work mightily through Paul for years. Even suffering as he did, Paul continued to have the sense of God’s presence and power in his life – and for that matter, to be amazingly joyful in his difficult circumstances.
The world holds to the belief that it’s only the strong and the powerful who can get anything meaningful done. But throughout the history of God’s relationship with humankind, much of God’s work has been done through people who seem weak by the world’s standards. And sometimes God works most powerfully through those who seem – and feel – weakest. It’s great to know that throughout history, God has called ordinary people like us into his service, and then empowered them by his Spirit to do great things.
Let’s pray. Lord, we do not ask for mystical visions, but we do ask that you would reveal yourself and your will to us, and that you would give us the vision to see what you’re showing us. And we pray that you’ll use your Spirit to work through us, so that your power will be shown through our weakness. Amen.
Grace and Peace,
Henry
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