The morning Manna will be provided at 6am. Thanks.

Studying Genesis in the SSnet.org series Lesson 2, may the Holy Spirit be the speaker to your heart. 

The Topic today is: "The Crucibles of Maturity"

The Opening Hymn will be 229 "Spirit of the Living God"

The Sabbath School Quarterly, downloadable from SSnet.org in the Teacher's Edition is on page 23 and for the laymen edition or Standard Edition, on page 19.

The SSnet.org site allows anyone, anywhere to read the lesson in their own language. Choose your own language to see God speaking also to your heart.

---Many people speak of Paul as the "perfect apostle". They are not far wrong.

---However, introspectively, and that is what 2 Corinthians 12 is about, Paul makes interesting comments.

---Between 2 Corinthians 12:1-10 Paul speaks of Visions and remarkable revelations that he got since Damascus.

---He does not want to glory at all in himself. In 11:30 he says he will glory in things pertaining to his own weakness.

---The principle here is that the overcoming saint, even though not sinning, will always feel humble and in need of Christ. It should be that the closer you come to Christ, you should be more aware of the wound marks on your conscience of sins of the past. They are a constant reminder and pain to remember.

---Paul speaks of himself being caught up into heaven 14 years before vv. 2-4.

---Paul is the "man in Christ" who went into the third heaven by revelation or vision.

---Paul does not want to say directly that it is himself. He is careful to say that but it is understood to be him. Scholars think it is a "high degree of celestial exaltation".

---He is not sure whether in the body or in vision but the reality was very clear of what he saw there (vv. 3-4). Many interpreted Paradise = Third Heaven.

---Respecting Paul in the exalted state going there, he will glory but respecting Paul in the earthly state now writing, "I will not glory except in my infirmities" (11:30). (see vv. 5-6).

---Keep in mind that the Corinthian church was cosmopolitan and the most complex problematic church of all Paul's churches.

---The best pastoral solution for Paul at this church is humbleness and care in expression and avoidance of any reference of self-achievement. That is the psychological secret of his narrative style for their weak sake. 

---The rule is that if the speaker is humble about himself, although he attained much, then there is no room for the audience to boast about spiritual achievements, even far less than Paul in quality and quantity.

---Paul says that if he wish to glory (thinking of those revelations) he shall not be foolish because they were real experiences and truthful. But he forebear to speak (pheibomai de me tis) = I refrain from glorifying respecting myself. Why? Because some man may regard Paul more than he really is. The Greek could easily make him a "god" and worship him because of his experiences. This is a problem. It was common in those days in outside sects floating around.

---One can see a case in Acts 14:8 at Lystra where it happened.

---There was also the danger of underrating Paul. Overrating was a problem but also underrating. Paul had to delicately dance here in the narrative to them.

---In vv. 7-8 Paul admitted that in order for him not to exalt himself too much by reason of the greatness of the revelations given to him "there was given to me a thorn in the flesh".

---What is the thorn in the flesh? Eyesight. A physical infirmity. It was something that disciplined him to be humble.

---Scholars think that it gave him a sharp pain. Definitely in the flesh, says the text. No one knows what it actually was but Ellen White says it is eyesight.

---She is closely right because he said elsewhere that he is writing in big letters to them.

---Some scholars think it is spiritual assaults of Satan: blasphemous thoughts; stings of consciences over his earlier life; enticements to unchastity. Others think it was problems with adversaries with the colleagues; still others think that it was severe bodily suffering: pain in the head; haemorrhoids; falling sickness; epileptic attacks of cramp.

---The angel of Satan is said to strike Paul with the fist "might buffet me" = kolaphizo. Was Paul put under surveillance by a tough Roman "guard" who handled him roughly at times?

---"Respecting this I three times besought the Lord that he might depart from me". The Lord? Not Christ but the Father (so did Calvin and others understood it). See verse 9.

---v. 9 "And He said to me: My grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness".

---The agony was not removed but in its place was given assurance of divine grace and its all sufficiency.

---Scholars are at loss what this skolops tei sarki "thorn in the flesh" really was. But Ellen White is maybe a better option.

---Did Paul suffer from cataract in the one eye? Or both? In those days there was no solution for this. The agony could not be removed.

---"Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities in order that the power of Christ may fix a tent [= epi-skeno] over me [= may encamp over me].

---One scholar thought it was referring to the Shechinah glory that was experienced in the temple in past history.

---v. 10 "Wherefore [a triumphant conclusion] I take pleasure [am well content] in infirmities, insults, in necessities, in persecutions, in straits, for the sake of Christ, for when I am weak, then I am powerful [because the power of Christ encamps over me and I have an inward assurance of strength].

---This is Christian psychology from the bible in truth at its best!

---It can also be ours.

---It is not a moral deficit but a physical one. Eyesight, maybe cataract?

Source: J. R. Boise, 1896 Notes Critical and Explanatory on the Greek Text of Paul’s Epistles pages 304ff. He was a professor in Chicago in the days of our pioneers. A Baptist. Online available at search archive.