Praying about thorns in the flesh.

2 Corinthians 12.6-10.

There’s a popularly misinterpreted paragraph Paul wrote about a person he described as “a thorn in the flesh.” Most of the time when you hear people interpret this passage, they claim it’s about some chronic ailment Paul had. Usually they speculate it’s eye damage from when Jesus blinded him that one time; Ac 9.8-9 as if when Ananias later cured him, Ac 9.17-18 he only cured him partway. But nope; Paul was writing about a really annoying person. Someone who was trying to derail his ministry.

2 Corinthians 12.6-10 KWL

6For whenever I want to be proud,

I won’t be a fool,

for I’ll speak truth.

I desist lest anyone considers me greater than I am,

who sees or hears {something} of me

7and the amazing revelations.

This is why, lest I get conceited,

a “thorn in the flesh” was given me—

Satan’s angel, who might punch me

lest I get conceited.

8Thrice I begged the Master about it,

so it might leave me.

9And the Master told me,

“My grace should satisfy you,

for {my} power is perfected by weakness.”

So I will gladly be more proud of my weaknesses,

so Christ’s power might abide in me.

10So I’m pleased with weakness for Christ—

in hubris, compulsions, persecutions, difficulties.

For whenever I am weak,

then I am strong.

I mean, I get why people presume this is a sickness; ἀσθένεια/asthéneia tends to be translated “sickness, disease, ailment, illness.” Properly it’s anything which affects your strength, but usually that’s disease. And a thorn in the flesh does sound like a chronic disease; like arthritis, a bad back, or poor vision 12 centuries before eyeglasses were invented.

But consider the context of this passage. Paul had just been talking about all the persecution he underwent because he preached the gospel. 2Co 11.23-27 Some of those things were physical ailments—because he got flogged, caned, stoned, shipwrecked and forced to swim for it, hungry, thirsty, cold, or weary. Physical hardship comes with the job.

So in this text, the “thorn in the flesh” describes a person or people who “gets under our skin”—yep, exactly like a thorn—and just bugs us. Often maliciously, but sometimes not. I’ve had coworkers who were really annoying people; they weren’t trying to be, but they simply didn’t think about anyone but themselves, and naturally this unrelenting selfishness made them an irritant. Lots of people are self-centered like that. I’m betting you can immediately think of at least one.

Sometimes they’re trying to be malicious. They wanna get in our way, wanna see our downfall. Not necessarily political opponents, although that’d be the first thing most people think of nowadays. Sometimes religious opponents—people who have their own inadequate or false religious practices, who don’t want you preaching the true gospel. Or people who would rather they preach the gospel than you; they’re jealous.

Now to be fair, sometimes they don’t want it to be you because you’re a jerk; you lack the maturity to fulfill your anointing, and need to stay back from leadership till you’re properly ready. Paul definitely had that problem when he first became Christian; both the Damascenes and Jerusalemites wanted to kill him because of the bold, argumentative way he preached. Ac 9.23, 9.29 It’s why the Twelve sent him back to Tarsus. Ac 9.30 Those are problems of our own making, but it’s fair to say by the time Paul and Timothy wrote 2 Corinthians, they were more mature than that.

In Paul’s day, when freedom of religion was barely a thing, such people who might even want to see us dead, and even think they’re doing this for God. And as Jesus said, no they don’t know God. Jn 16.2 They only imagine they do, but they’ve been following their own fleshly desires for a good long time, and have ’em completely confused with God’s will.

The repentant taxmen and soldiers.

Luke 3.12-14.

The gospel of Matthew doesn’t tell us about the crowd of repentant Israelis asking John the baptist what they now should do. Doesn’t have him tell people to share their extra tunics. Doesn’t have him say this part either, when repentant taxmen and soldiers ask him how they’re now to live.

Luke 3.12-14 KWL

12Taxmen are also coming to be baptized,

and tell Johnᴾ, “Teacher, what might we do?”

13John is telling them,

“Do nothing more than your² orders.”

14Soldiers are also questioning Johnᴾ,

saying, “And we? What might we do?”

John is telling them, “Shake no one down,

nor extort silver from anyone.

Be content with your² salary.”

The gospels say the crowd had come to John to repent, but in the Jesus movies, they’re doing no such thing. They’re sitting on the riverside, watching other people come to John. Meanwhile they stand back and watch, grumbling, all judgey. In the gospels when John addresses the Pharisees and Sadducees, he’s speaking to the religious folks who are coming out into the water to receive his baptism. Not skeptics on the shore; that’s in John. In the synoptics, the Pharisees and Sadducees received his message—and John’s challenging them to actually live lifestyles of repentance.

Hence the question, “What might we do?” Now that we’re following God, how ought we live? And John went right for the most obvious deficiency in their lifestyle and character. He went right for the throat of Mammon.

Yep, Mammon. Money’s always been a rival with God for our affections. Was in Moses’s day, was in John’s, is in ours. So John told the people they oughta share what they had. Told the taxmen they oughta stop charging people more than what the Romans expected. Told the soldiers they oughta stop angling for bribes and extorting evildoers, and be content with what they were paid. These are money temptations. So, y’know, Mammonism.

Most of the time, the first thing we go after when we’re instructing new Christians, is we try to get ’em to come to church, read their bibles, pray regularly—to get in the basic habits of the Christian religion. Which is fine! We should teach all that stuff. But we’re not always that great at reminding them to resist basic temptations. Or if we do, it’s usually Ten Commandments stuff like no theft, no murder, no adultery, no coveting, and no idolatry. We don’t go on a frontal assault against their very biggest idols, and if they’re from the United States, these idols would be their stomachs, their wallets, and their teams—athletic and political.

John, same as his fellow biblical prophets, went good ’n hard against the biggest idol Israel had: Wealth. That’s what they coveted: Enough money to buy off the Romans and make their lives comfortable. That’s what got Israelis to turn their backs on their own people and work as tax-gatherers for the despised Romans. That’s what got people to leave their homelands and join the Roman army and hope to gain Roman citizenship: People got rich doing that, and they wanted some of those riches too.

But our treasure is in God, and if we wanna follow him, we gotta put our wealth under his feet too. And stop doing every morally questionable, evil compromise we can, just to get at that wealth. Be good for once.

“I’m not getting fed.”

In my teenage years I finally began to notice the phenomenon of people leaving my church to go attend another one. Some Christians are nomads like that: They attend a church for a few months, even years, and then switch. They stick around till the novelty wears off. (Others stick around until they’ve burnt too many bridges, but I’m not writing about those people today.) That church got boring, so off they go to find a new one, which won’t be boring… for a few months anyway. Once they’re bored of that one, they’ll once again move on.

But these Christians still live in town, so every once in a while you’re gonna find them at a grocery store, restaurant, park, library, theater, or wherever. And you might have time to catch up, and find out where they’re going to church now; hopefully they’re still going. And they might tell you why they’re not going to your church anymore: They didn’t like the music, or had problems with your church’s doctrines, or grew outraged by your church’s politics, or your youth pastor molested their kids. Issues which range from petty to profound. But most often they’re petty.

A rather common one I kept hearing from ex-attendees was, “I just wasn’t getting fed anymore.”

No, this wasn’t a complaint about how our church didn’t have potlucks regularly enough. By “fed” they mean spiritually fed. Spiritual food is what Christians tend to call our encounters with the Holy Spirit’s wisdom. We expect him to tell us profound things… and we expect him to do this through our church leaders. We expect the sermons to be full of deep, meaningful stuff.

Well, things we consider deep and meaningful. Some of us haven’t a clue about what’s actually deep and meaningful. For a while there I used to think it was historical background about the bible which I didn’t yet know. Plenty of other Christians believe the very same thing, which is why whenever I teach on the bible’s historical background, I get compliments from people who love how “profound” my teachings were. Meh; you can find that stuff in books. The good stuff is when the Holy Spirit uses that raw data to provide us insights about how he works.

And the Spirit can get our preachers to give plenty of profound insights in their sermons. But if we don’t recognize these insights as profound—or if we don’t like these insights, ’cause they rub our flesh the wrong way—we’ll presume there’s something wrong with our church. And leave. And go try to find one which pleases us more.

All that aside, I have a bone to pick with the underlying presumption: Is the point of church to get us “spiritually fed”? Or is it something else?—something more?

Yeah, I won’t leave you in suspense: It’s something more. The point of church is to interact with our fellow Christians. To worship together, and encourage one another to follow Jesus more and better, and discourage one another from slacking. It’s to support one another, and build each other up.

But, same as those people who followed Jesus only because he fed ’em bread, there are Christians who don’t give a rip about fellow Christians and encouraging one another. They want bread. “Spiritual bread,” but bread just the same, and not because it’ll actually make ’em better Jesus-followers, but so they can add to their stash of bible trivia.

Thing is, if you wanna increase your knowledge of bible trivia, you can do that at home. It’s not something we need to do together with fellow Christians. Worship, fellowship, and encouragement is stuff we need to do corporately, in church, as the church. Education?—you can read a book. I learn way more from books than from any lecture series—even the ones I took in seminary.

If the only time we ever get spiritually fed is when we go to church, it means we suck at following Jesus.

Elijah prepares the Lᴏʀᴅ’s altar.

1 Kings 18.30-35.

You already know how this story ends, so I’m not building up any suspense by only discussing the section just before Elijah prays and God sends fire.

In the previous passage, Baal’s prophets were cutting themselves till they got blood all over them, from around noon till the evening sacrifice. Once they were finished unsuccessfully calling upon their god—or maybe they were still trying, but the Israelis grew tired of watching and Elijah was now able to hold their attention—he called them over to himself, to a knocked-down altar of the LORD which happened to be there.

Most translations make it sound like Baal’s prophets did their thing till the time of the evening sacrifice, and only then did Elijah get to work on the altar he’d use. Maybe; then Elijah’s sacrifice would’ve taken place after sundown, while it was kinda dark, which would’ve made it far more visible and dramatic.

But the wyqtl past imperfect Hebrew verbs make it sound to me like while the Baalists were busy making noise, Elijah had been quietly working on the side. Probably with help, since he did have people who poured water for him. We don’t know what time of year this took place, and how hot an afternoon it was to be heaving stones and digging a trench, but obviously they did bring water. In any case Elijah’s work would’ve been finished by the time of evening sacrifice; his sacrifice would’ve been the evening sacrifice.

1 Kings 18.30-35 KWL

30Elijah told all the people, “Come near me.”

All the people came near him.

He had fixed YHWH’s torn-down altar.

31Elijah had taken 12 stones,

like the number of tribes of Jacob’s sons,

Jacob to whom YHWH’s word came,

to say, “Your name is Israel.”

32Elijah had built the stones into an altar

in the name of YHWH.

He made a trench which could house

two seahs [15 liters] of seed

round the altar.

33Elijah arranged the wood.

He cut the calf into pieces.

He placed it on the wood.

34Elijah said, “Fill four water jars.

Pour it on the offering and on the wood.”

He said, “Again.”

They did it again.

He said, “A third time.”

They did it a third time.

35Water ran all over the altar;

the trench was full of water as well.

Crosses versus crucifixes.

The names in this dialogue were changed to protect the privacy of the people having this discussion. You’ll see why.

LUQMAN. “…You're wearing a crucifix, so you're obviously Christian.”

AISHWARYA. “Cross. Not crucifix.”

LUQMAN. “It's not the same thing?”

AISHWARYA. “No. A crucifix has a dead Jesus on it. Crosses don't.”

ME [butting in]. “Sometimes dead, sometimes not. It depends on whether it shows the spear wound. If no spear wound, he’s dying, not dead.”

AISHWARYA. “No, he's always dead. Catholics worship a dead Jesus.”

SYLVESTER [who’s Catholic, and is now offended]. “We do not. And Leslie’s right; it's a dying Jesus. Crucifixes don't have the spear wound.”

AISHWARYA. “Well I worship a risen Jesus.”

ME. “Every Christian worships a risen Jesus. Whether they wear crucifixes or crosses.”

AISHWARYA. “Catholics don't.”

SYLVESTER. “Where are you getting this [MALARKEY] about Catholics? It sure ain’t from Catholics!”

Lemme correct my Catholic acquaintance: Not all crucifixes depict Jesus as dying instead of dead.
A Russian Orthodox blessing crucifix. Wikimedia Some of them intend to show all the torture the Romans inflicted upon him. This includes all five of “the five wounds”—the nails through his hands and feet, plus the spear in his side. Crucifixes regularly put the nails in the wrong place—the Romans crucified people through the wrists and ankles, not the palms and dorsums, which’d break a number of bones and y’might recall “A bone of him shall not be broken.” Jn 19.36 KJV Plus the “five wounds” don’t count the flogging and the crown of thorns; not sure why not, though most crucifixes definitely include the crown. Anyway, since the spear wound came after Jesus died, Jn 19.34 displaying it obviously means he’s dead. And lots of crucifixes deliberately display it.

Anyway. The reason Protestants tend to be pretty clueless about crucifixes, is traditionally we don’t display them. Largely that’s because, during the Protestant Reformation, the Calvinists decided to undecorate their church buildings. They wanted nothing to distract people from their sermons: No gilding, stained glass, nor art. No statues, including crucifixes. (In fact many of ’em still aren’t entirely sure statues don't violate the command against graven images. Dt 5.8-9) Not even crosses, if you can imagine. Nothing. Bare walls.

The Calvinist sensibility gradually became the prevalent mindset of cultural Evangelicals. It’s only in the 1900s when we begin to see decorations seriously return to Evangelical churches. And not without controversy; many Christians still think there should be nothing but bare walls in our churches. But even in the newly decorated churches, no crucifixes. Great big crosses and lots of ’em, but Jesus isn’t on them.

Take off your shoes.

Back in the 1990s I visited the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem; you might know this place better as the Dome of the Rock. (This was back when they’d let non-Muslims visit.) It’s the oldest Muslim building in the world; it’s believed to be where the temple of the LORD, in Jesus’s day, once stood. It’s an impressive building. Neat mosaics. Pity it deliberately has anti-Christian verses from the Quran inscribed in them:

An-Nisa 4.171

Messiah Jesus ibn Mary was no more than a messenger of God, the fulfilment of his word, through Mary and a spirit sent by him. So believe in God and his messengers. Do not say trinity; stop for your own good. God is only One God. Glory to him; he is far above having a son.

Yep, Muslims believe Jesus is Messiah, that he’s alive, and that he’s coming back. But they insist he’s not God, nor the son of God. Sometimes they’ll teach even they aren’t God’s children; only his servants. But I digress.

Before we went in, we were instructed to leave our shoes at the door. I was wearing sandals, so it meant I had to go barefoot. Lots of people in there were barefoot. Why barefoot? Because it’s holy ground.

And that used to be the regular practice of monotheistic religions—

Exodus 3.2-5 NIV

2There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. 3So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”

4When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!”

And Moses said, “Here I am.”

5“Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.”

When the ground was holy, you lose the shoes.

Joshua 5.15 NIV

The commander of the LORD’s army replied, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so.

When people stood before God, or went to temple and synagogue, they removed their sandals. Because that was the ancient custom: Holy ground, no sandals. In the Greek and Roman empires, the way you could tell slaves from freemen was the fact freemen wore sandals and slaves didn’t, and the Jews of that day recognized this was kinda part of the reason we remove our shoes for holy ground: We’re the LORD’s slaves, and need to remember our place.

So why don’t Christians remove our shoes when we worship? Well, some of us do. Sometimes I do. But you might recall we Christians are collectively the temple of the Holy Spirit: We’re always on holy ground. Because we’re holy, wherever we go is holy ground. And sometimes it’s just wise to wear shoes. Hence the barefoot-before-God thing became optional. And when it’s not our custom to ever go barefoot, sometimes we’re not aware it’s an option—one we might want to opt to do.

At the barest minimum, share.

Luke 3.10-11.

After John the baptist rebuked his audience of Pharisees and Sadducees for presuming upon God’s salvation, Matthew tells of no response they made to him. This gospel’s readers could’ve interpreted this omission either optimistically or pessimistically—depending on their own attitudes toward Pharisees and Sadducees. Either the rebukees indignantly stood back and thought mean things about John, like they tend to in the Jesus movies. Or they truly were there to repent and be baptized, same as everybody else. I presume John’s audience had both sorts, just as Christian churches do.

Or instead of Matthew you could read Luke, in which the collective crowd—which still includes those Pharisees and Sadducees—honestly sought to know and follow God better. And since John appeared to know him, they wanted his advice. We wanna repent; tell us how!

John’s response is extremely basic. So simple, Christians are in the bad habit of overlooking it, skipping it, or dismissing it entirely. Don’t do that; it’s important.

Luke 3.10-11 KWL

10The crowd is asking John, “So what might we do?”

11In reply John is telling them,

“If you’re one who has two tunics,

share with one who has none.

One who has food:

Do likewise.”

Why do Christians ignore this? Duh; we don’t wanna do it.

So we call it works righteousness and pretend John never said it; it never happened. Just like polite people respond to a fart in an elevator. We find various ways of hand-waving it away. Back when I was in a Fundamentalist church, our pastor actually told us John’s teachings can be safely ignored because John was from an old dispensation; one in which the Hebrews were saved by obeying the Law of Moses and supplemental good works. Nowadays we call this belief Pelagianism—and it’s heresy because God saves us, and has always saved us, by his grace. Abraham believed God, who graciously counted his belief as righteousness, Ro 4.3, Ga 3.6, Jm 2.23 remember? There is no dispensation of good works; no one has ever earned or merited salvation. If a person were ever as good as Jesus, they don’t need saving anyway! Pelagianism has never not been wrong. And heresy.