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My feeling is that we shouldn't seek to find out what Paul's "thorn" but instead how to deal with the "thorns" that God gives us. This thread asks the wrong question.

Please explain yourself; I don't understand you.

Paul doesn't define or describe the "thorn" at all; you misread the passage. He struggled against sin in Romans 7, the way all Christians need to do.

Who says that we are following Paul, not Jesus? I'm not.

My late wife and I had our second child, Keith, who came down with leukemia and died about two years later at the age of 4 1/2. Now, the fallen world, Satan, and human sinful rebellion were the direct causes of Keith's illness and death. On the other hand, his sickness and death God used for our...

Major depression is a disease that grabs ahold of a person with anger and anxiety in the unconscious mind. At least, it did with me. Since it is a disease, it needs God's help of some kind through people for it to disappear. God gave me that help but left the pain to keep me dependent on him for...

So, you must disagree with Paul that his "thorn" was a "messenger of Satan" and that God brought good out of it by grace to humble Paul, is that right?

I don't want any speculation about the nature of Paul's "thorn in the flesh." Other threads do that kind of discussion. Finding out what it was is not my interest, but sharing our experiences with weaknesses is. Mine is physical pain, four kinds, that started 38 years ago the third Friday in...

My dear Behold, you're always working to set up false Calvinistic straw-persons and then knocking them down. What other subjects are you passionate about that we can discuss rationally? However, as a Calvinist, I declare to you that God does not personally cause harmful situations in...

Of course, it would make perfect sense, because we need God's strength and grace to endure any kind of physical or mental weakness.

However, such requests are modeled by Job, David, Jeremiah, Habakkuk, and other Old Testament passages. Seventy-three of the Psalms are at least in part laments about the Psalmists' struggles.

The difficulty I have with your conclusion is that Paul leaves the word "thorn" vague and imprecise and that the Romans 7 reference to lust may not be the same as his mention of a "thorn" in 2 Corinthians 12. Let's face it. No one knows what exact kind of "thorn" Paul had. There are a lot of...

I agree!

'Tis very true!

That's why I asked a question instead of jumping to conclusions. Thanks for your answer.

Yes, but it's our responsibility for our sinful rebellion, as it was Satan's, not God's.

Please don't lump us Calvinists in with the Mormons or the Jehovah's Witnesses, because we believe that God is Triune as the Gospel of John clearly shows, and Joseph Smith and Judge Rutherford did not. That makes Calvinism Christian, but not the Mormons or the Jehovah's Witnesses. We agree on...

Of course, I believe what Paul says clearly that only the predestined can believe in Jesus. So, are you saying that believers can brag about their choice to believe in Jesus, because they were able to do it? Read Ephesians 2:1-10. We can't brag about our faith because God enables us to come...

I am not a disciple of Calvin, but I find that his interpretations are the best and most consistent with the whole of the Bible. That's why I call myself a Calvinist. I am a disciple of Jesus and his adopted brother. To call Calvin "demonized" is to judge and condemn him without reading what he...

So we need to be the Bible's people, but the closest doctrines that I've found to the Bible's truths are in the Reformed or Calvinistic theology.