00:00Hey, Shabbat Shalom brothers and sisters, welcome back. I thank you again for joining me today.
00:05Today I want to talk about something here. It's 2 Corinthians chapter 12 verses 7 through 10.
00:12The thorn in the flesh of Paul. What is he talking about? What's going on?
00:17I'll read this to you and give you possibilities.
00:22Okay, I'm going to start out here.
00:23And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was
00:31given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure concerning this thing.
00:41I pleaded with the eternal three times that it may might depart from me.
00:48And he said unto me, my grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.
00:55That's very important right there.
00:58Therefore, most gladly, I will rather boost in my infirmities that the power of Messiah may rest upon me.
01:06Therefore, I take pleasure in affirmities and the reproaches and needs and persecutions and distresses for Messiah's sake.
01:17For when I am weak, then I am strong.
01:20And that's beautiful, beautiful verses right there.
01:25And I don't want to really get the lesson about that.
01:29Like, you know, for one reason, Satan gave him this thorn in his side.
01:38And, of course, you know, human nature always suggests and states, you know, we don't want to be in pain
01:44or anything.
01:44We want relief.
01:45And you have Paul here, who's a devote disciple of Messiah and loves Yahweh very much.
01:52And he partitions Yahweh to take this away.
01:56And Yahweh turns around and says, not so, because he's teaching Paul a valuable lesson, of course.
02:03And, but the thing is, it's been, there's many suggestions what this thorn in the side is.
02:12Scholars are always debating it, arguing about it.
02:16Some think they know what it is.
02:17And others just counter it, saying, well, you don't have no evidence.
02:21And sure enough, we don't really have complete evidence, you know, to confirm or even deny.
02:30I mean, we just, we just don't know.
02:33But possibilities of the thorn is, could be a physical illness or even his eye trouble when he was blinded,
02:39gone the road to Damascus.
02:41Could have been that.
02:42He could have not been completely healed.
02:44I mean, something could have hurt his eyes or something.
02:48He wasn't completely healed.
02:51Could have been persecutions of the, of the opponents.
02:54They could have, you know, because he's been stoned.
02:57He's, he almost, he was on the brink of, brink of death a few times.
03:01He's been ridiculed, spit on.
03:04I'm not like spit's going to kill you or anything.
03:07But, and then there's spiritual or emotional struggle within himself.
03:11Maybe he had some kind of a dark temptation that he was fighting and he kept praying and he's overcoming
03:19or whatever.
03:20And then he just wanted to get rid of it.
03:23And, and Yahweh said, no, you know, Yahweh's got his purpose and plans.
03:28I mean, he, he's, he's, he's, he's the, he's the one.
03:31He's, he knows what's best for us.
03:33And, uh, sometimes he just don't take things away.
03:38If somebody gets sick or bad trouble or anything, there's a purpose behind it.
03:42It's not that he don't, he has it out for you or anything like that.
03:45But anyways, the Greek word for thorn is, uh, skolops, skolops.
03:53It's Strong's number G4647, meaning a sharp point, a thorn, a splinter, or a pointed stake.
04:02And it's a masculine noun.
04:04Uh, so when we go to that, that might drop it down.
04:08Maybe he was stabbed or something and he had a piece of wood or something in him, you know.
04:13An enemy come up and try to dispatch him and somehow it went in, but then it broke off.
04:20And there was a thorn in the side too deep.
04:22He couldn't get it.
04:23I mean, couldn't get it out or anything.
04:25But, uh, figurative meaning, a painful bodily annoyance, disability, or acute physical irritation.
04:35So that, that doesn't say much really, uh, could be anything.
04:42And then I looked up in the Greek New Testament dictionary, but it also adds the word plague.
04:49Plague into that, into the other things.
04:52And plague, he could have had a, yeah, a sickness, a plague of some kind.
04:56I'm not saying leprosy or anything, but he could have had some kind of, uh, issue with a disease.
05:03It could have been, I'm not, you know, that wouldn't, wouldn't necessarily kill him, but it would basically make his
05:10life very uncomfortable.
05:13But that's, uh, that's just my take on things like that.
05:17I just, just kind of fascinated.
05:20What is this thorn?
05:20And then also Satan delivered it to him.
05:24Uh, if anybody has any, uh, comments about it or anything, any ideas or speculations, feel free to put it
05:31in a comment.
05:32I'd love to hear what you have to say about it or things like that.
05:35I, but anyways, I'm sorry this is short, but I just wanted to bring this issue up and everything.
05:42And, and I just wanted you to get, reach out to you guys and ask you, what do you guys
05:47think about it?
05:48Like I said before, yeah, I'm inviting you down and comment below.
05:51But that's all I have to say right now.
05:53And I thank you guys again for joining me.
05:54Uh, please give me a big thumbs up, hit that notification bell.
05:58Check out my other videos, of course.
06:00I got plenty of them.
06:01And also I can use some more subscribers.
06:03Uh, I try not to let you down or anything, but that's all I have to say right now.
06:08Until we meet again, brothers and sisters, peace out and shalom.
06:12Peace out and shalom.
