Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 2 Corinthians · About this commentary
My Grace Is Sufficient
2 Corinthians 12:7-10
7 By reason of the exceeding greatness of the revelations, that I should not be exalted excessively, a thorn in the flesh was given to me: a messenger of Satan to torment me, that I should not be exalted excessively. · WEB
A request is refused three times and answered with something else, and the refusal is the letter's whole argument delivered to the man making it.
By reason of the exceeding greatness of the revelations, that I should not be exalted excessively, a thorn in the flesh was given to me: a messenger of Satan to torment me, that I should not be exalted excessively.
The purpose clause appears twice in one verse, before and after the thorn, so the reason brackets the affliction on both sides. Nothing else in the letter is repeated that way inside a single sentence.
Two descriptions stand together and are not reconciled. It was given — a passive with no agent named, which in this context points upward. And it is a messenger of Satan. The affliction is attributed to an adversary and assigned a purpose by God, and the text leaves both standing without explaining how one arrangement serves the other.
What the thorn was is never disclosed. The word covers a stake or a splinter, and the two things said about it are that it torments and that it stayed.
Verse 8 records the response: I begged the Lord three times that it might depart from me. Three requests, and the same verb he uses of pleading with the Corinthians 2 Corinthians 5:20.
The answer is given in the perfect tense — he has said to me — so it was spoken once and stands: my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.
That is a refusal. The thorn is not removed and nothing is promised about its removal. What is offered instead is a statement about supply, in the present tense, and a reason: power reaches its completion in weakness rather than despite it. Which means removing the thorn would have removed the condition the power required.
And the argument closes on the man who has been making it. A letter contending that God works through what looks like failure could not be written by someone who had been made strong. The refusal is the doctrine applied to its author.
So the conclusion is not resignation but preference: most gladly therefore I will rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest on me. Then five items — weaknesses, injuries, necessities, persecutions, distresses — and a sentence that would be nonsense in any other frame: for when I am weak, then am I strong.
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