Bible Commentaries

The Dignity of Suffering

2 Corinthians 12:5

It was a strange catalogue out of which St. Paul made his one solitary "glory"— 2 Corinthians 12:7

Let us consider:—

I. The Special Suffering of which the Apostle Complains.—(1) It was acute. Froude says that all Carlyle's troubles were imaginary; and very many of our troubles are that, or little more. Yet we have real misfortunes and sorrows, and occasionally these are profound and acute. Many misfortunes scratch the surface; a few times at least in life they search the depths and sting the soul. (2) It was unutterable. St. Paul does not disclose the character of his special sorrow, and commentators have sought in vain to pick the lock and reveal the hidden skeleton. But the great lesson to be learnt from the Apostle's silence is this, that there are sorrows in life which cannot be expressed. Superficial souls incapable of great grief will, upon the slightest provocation, fetch out their skeleton from its cupboard and dilate on its special features; but real griefs are sacred, and noble men are reticent. There is the silence of self-respect. There is the silence of delicacy. There is the silence of honour. There is the silence of affection. There is the silence of surprise and dismay. There is the silence of necessity. (3) It was incurable. Most troubles are forgotten with time, nay, time often gives them a tender grace, and it is not altogether sorrowful to recall them. But it is not thus with all our griefs: some of them are manifestly irremediable. (4) It was malignant. "A messenger of Satan to buffet me." We find most difficult to bear the sufferings which somehow make us most conscious of the presence and action of the powers of darkness.

II. The Design of the Apostle's Affliction.—(1) It contemplated his safety. "Lest I should be exalted above measure." Most subtle are the temptations of high spiritual estate; hard by are pitfalls and the valley of the shadow of death. (2) It designed his more complete strength. "My grace is sufficient for thee." "When I am weak, then am I strong." God takes away our natural strength, chastens the pride of our understanding and will, deprives us of worldly confidences and hopes, that He may reveal in us a new and Diviner strength. (3) It designed his larger service. We often see that through personal frailty and suffering men become more effective teachers of the highest truths—more pathetic painters, mightier poets, nobler preachers; and through his personal sorrows the Apostle was fitted for more effective service. Tens of thousands of God's people know that the blow which shattered them, and reduced them to what the world calls weakness, was the very providence that awoke in them a Diviner life, and fitted them for higher and holier service.

—W. L. Watkinson, The Bane and the Antidote, p247.

2 Corinthians 12:7

God saw that the Apostle was a better man with the thorn than he would have been without it. The prayer was heard, and the answer was "No". Who knows what sins and failures St. Paul was saved from, by the constant pricking of the warning thorn? Was it not, indeed, a fairy thorn in his flesh touching him at risky moments, as though endued with some warning power, a mystic spike plucked from the very Crown of Thorns itself? Who knows?

—E. E. Holmes, Prayer and Action, p12.

References.—XII:7.—C. Bradley, The Christian Life, p393. Expositor (5th Series), vol. i. p238; ibid. vol. x. p118. XII:7-9.—Brooke Herford, Courage and Cheer, p54. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xviii. No1084. R. C. Trench, Sermons New and Old, p86. XII:8 , 9.—Expository Sermons on the New Testament, p204. XII:9.—Newman Smyth, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlvii. p97. J. C. Wright, The Record, vol. XXVII. p3. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxii. No1287: and vol. lii. No2974. Expositor (7th Series), vol. v. p494. XII:9.—G. H. Morrison. Christian World Pulpit, 22June, 1910. XII:10.—C. F. Aked, The Courage of the Coward, p47. H. M. Butler, Harrow School Sermons, p365. T. F. Crosse, Sermons (2Series), p139. S. H. Fleming, Fifteen-minute Sermons for the People, p190. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxiv. No2050. XII:11.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxv. No1458. Expositor (6th Series), vol. viii. p73. XII:14.—J. C. M. Bellew, Sermons, vol. ii. p269. Expositor (5th Series), vol. x. p184; ibid. (6th Series), vol. iii. p278.

2 Corinthians 12:14

In Luther's Table-Talk the following remarks are quoted under the heading "Patres thesaurizent liberis:" Cordatus said: "Many disapprove of this". The Doctor [Luther] said: "If our predecessors had left no treasures to us, what should we possess now? Today we might live in idleness, if we were not obliged by God's commandment to leave something to our children" [E. Kroker, Luther's Tischreden, 1903 , p183]. Luther's words are the more noteworthy as he was generous almost to a fault in his gifts to those outside his own family. Like his co-worker Melanchthon, he could never allow a beggar to knock in vain at his door. Unlike Melanchthon, Luther possessed a wife with keen business instincts, and a steady determination to increase her husband's property.

References.—XII:18.—Expositor (5th Series), vol. vii. p117. XIII:1.—Ibid. vol. i. p401. XIII:2-10.—Ibid. (5th Series), vol. v. p234. XIII:3-5.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxx. No1788.