Satan’s Messenger

What did Paul mean when he said that his thorn in the flesh was …a messenger of Satan to torment me? It helps to look at the immediate context first. How is Satan described in 2 Corinthians? Paul unmasks him. He refers to Satan’s schemes (2:11), his tactic of blinding the eyes of unbelievers (4:4), the weapons at our disposal to demolish his strongholds (10:4), his primary tactic of deception employed with Eve and Adam in the Garden of Eden (11:3), and his masquerade as an angel of light (11:14-15). In short, Satan is a schemer, a deceiver, and he is an undercover agent—“a messenger”—to bring Paul grief.

Might the messenger have been a person? Maybe it was someone like Alexander the Coppersmith (2 Timothy 4:14-15)? When we consider how people cause us “thornful” pain, it raises other questions. Is this person demon-possessed or evil? Is God allowing Satan to inflict pain through our fallen human relationships?

Was the thorn, then, concurrently given by God and used by the Evil One? Remember it was given to deal a blow to Paul’s pride. Satan would have loved to see Paul as a prideful arrogant being like him. It makes no sense that the Ultimately Prideful one would donate a thorn to help God’s servant deal with the sin of pride.

The book of Job shows that God uses the Evil One to accomplish his good purposes. The experience of Bible characters like Paul and Job shows that the Devil is at work. He aims to bring misery into the lives of God’s people, but he is not sovereign. Satan does oppose God, but he is not his equal. God is the Creator. Satan is a creature. God is omnipotent, Satan is potent. God is infinite. Satan is finite.

What must we do, then, as we face this Satanic messenger?

First, recognize we are involved in a cosmic battle, there is more going on than what happens to us, as Job eventually found out.

Second, there are evil forces arrayed against us (Ephesians 6:12).

Third, when we resist the Devil, he will retreat (James 4:7; 1 Peter 5:9).

Ephesians 6:10 provides the key to this resistance: Be strong in the Lord, and his mighty power. Focus on the abundant grace that is available as you face this Enemy. You are not his equal. The call is not to convince yourself that you are strong enough, but to draw from the mighty strength of the Lord.

• How can we tell if a painful thorn in our lives is from Satan, or from more natural causes?

Excerpts from The Point of Your Thorns: Finding Purpose in Your Pain

by Rowland Forman