Context should define the translation. And when a word is used in the same sentence it shouldn't carry double meaning.
But let's go the other way, toward 'infirmity'. See if you like it:
2 Corinthians 12:9 (context using 'infirmity' erroneously)
And He has said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected when I make you sick. Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my sicknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.
How do you like it?
If I may share,
I think its possible that the thorn has nothing at all to do with a a sickness...but rather, with something concerning Paul's Past....and perhaps the thorn could be be "pre" ministry rather than "post." Specifically, I believe he attacked Christians, and then after his conversion he was under attack, himself. And the attackers were demonically influenced. Essentially, for all the years that Paul was an enforcer and essentially a terrorist toward others, perhaps what he did to others was something that came back to bite him.
For verification, more can be found in places such as Numbers 33:55, Joshua 23:12-14, Judges 2:2-4 and Ezekiel 28:24, where thorns refer to Israel's enemies..being raised up against them whenever they may choose to forget the Lord/get more caught up in what God has done through them than in the Lord Himself, much like one delighting in the visions God gives Him and yet being more concerned with others KNOWING he recieved a vision (for his own glory) rather than concerned with how He can reflect the Lord..
Numbers 33:55
" 'But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land, those you allow to remain will become barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides. They will give you trouble in the land where you will live. 56 And then I will do to you what I plan to do to them.' "
Joshua 23:5-14
5 The LORD your God himself will drive them out of your way. He will push them out before you, and you will take possession of their land, as the LORD your God promised you.
6 "Be very strong; be careful to obey all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, without turning aside to the right or to the left. 7 Do not associate with these nations that remain among you; do not invoke the names of their gods or swear by them. You must not serve them or bow down to them. 8 But you are to hold fast to the LORD your God, as you have until now. 9 "The LORD has driven out before you great and powerful nations; to this day no one has been able to withstand you. 10 One of you routs a thousand, because the LORD your God fights for you, just as he promised. 11 So be very careful to love the LORD your God.
12 "But if you turn away and ally yourselves with the survivors of these nations that remain among you and if you intermarry with them and associate with them, 13 then you may be sure that the LORD your God will no longer drive out these nations before you. Instead, they will become snares and traps for you, whips on your backs and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land, which the LORD your God has given you.
Ezekiel 28:23-25
24 " 'No longer will the people of Israel have malicious neighbors who are painful briers and sharp thorns. Then they will know that I am the Sovereign LORD.
And if Paul was having great visions/dreams which God knew could make him prideful, then its possible that thorns can also refer to Paul's opponents, who continued to persecute him. Of course, the references to "thorns" in the OT differ from Paul's experience since those were often sent AFTER THE FACT--as in sent whenever the people of God had ALREADY turned away...and with Paul, He noted that the "Messenger/Thorn" came BEFORE...as God sent it to KEEP him from falling into conciet:
2 Corinthians 12:7
To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.
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There is the possibility that as we're in a New Covenant/"New Deal" than the Old Covenant, that perhaps God chose to do differently than he had in the past by choosing to act pre-emptively in the life of Paul....letting him experience the thorns he would've naturally faced had he turned away from the Lord into pride, thus increasing Paul's reliance upon Him so he'd be spared from a worse fate.....for the "thorn in the flesh" was the only appropiate means for glorifying God's grace and power in his life and ministry....and something else worth noting is that the visions of the 3rd Heavens/Paradise were things he'd gotten VERY EARLY on in his life as indicated when he stated in II Corinthians 12:1-3 that he recieved the POWERFUL Visions fourteen years ago..sometime between A.D. 42-44, aorund Tarsus or Antioch, prior to his first missionary journey (Acts 9:19-28, Acts 9:29-30, Acts 11:25-26).
2 Corinthians 12:2
I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not knowGod knows.
Galatians 1:1-24
Paul Called by God
11I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. 12I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ. 13For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. 14I was advancing in Judaism beyond many Jews of my own age and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers. 15But when God, who set me apart from birth[a] and called me by his grace, was pleased 16to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not consult any man, 17nor did I go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went immediately into Arabia and later returned to Damascus. 18Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter and stayed with him fifteen days. 19I saw none of the other apostlesonly James, the Lord's brother. 20I assure you before God that what I am writing you is no lie. 21Later I went to Syria and Cilicia. 22I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. 23They only heard the report: "The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy." 24And they praised God because of me.
Galatians 2
Paul Accepted by the Apostles
1Fourteen years later I went up again to Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas. I took Titus along also. 2I went in response to a revelation and set before them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles.
This is important because often people look at the text of II Corinthians 12 and assume that Paul got the thorn the moment he announced it to the Corinthians---but the context is that he is contending against opponents who boast in their spiritual experiences. as well as in their ethnic identity.....and so Paul is forced to boast also, however foolishly, in his own visions and revelations (II Corinthians 11:1, II Corinthians 11:16, II Corinthians 12:11)----and then in verses 7-10, he returns one last time to boast in his weaknesses, revealing the prescence of a "thorn".
If he had a thorn given to Him EARLY on in his ministry-------whereas other teachers of his day started out from their youth in the wrong attitudes----then it'd make sense as to why Paul coudl've gone through SO MUCH.....and why all of the sufferings He endured seemed to not affect him as it would others. He was already called to suffer much for the Name of Christ ( Acts 9:15-17 )---and if God knew that many of his experiences He'd see could cause him to take pride in his sufferings, then it'd make sense for God to check him early on...
So could it not also be possible that Paul's reference to the thorn in II Corinthians 12 is actually him speaking about what had been there THROUGHOUT his ministry time rather than a recent matter........and that his doing so was a way to show the Corinthians what it meant to truly trust in the Lord for all things? Additionally, if the theory of the "thorn" always being present in the ministry of Paul is valid, then would it not be possible that the OPPONENTS that are trying to come against Paul continually are in some ways the "thorns" that he is referencing to? For it would get vexing indeed if others from your past followed you around WHEREVER you went....and the Jews often went after Paul continually, from City to City ( Acts 13:44-46, Acts 14:1-3 , Acts 17:4-6, Acts 18:5-7 , Acts 21:27-40, Acts 22-25, Galatians 5:10-12 , Philippians 3:1-3, Titus 1:9-11 )
With the phrase "in the flesh, a messenger of SATAN", the most frequently proposed possibilities include: (1) Paul's inner psychological struggles (such as grief over his earlier persecution of the church, or sorrow over Israel's unbelief, or continuning temptations); (2) Paul's opponents, who continued to persecute him (Numbers 33:55, Joshua 23:12-14, Judges 2:2-4 and Ezekiel 28:24, where thorns refer to Israel's enemies); (3) some kind of physical affliction (possibly poor eyesight, malaria fever, or severe migraine headaches); or (4) some kind of demonic harrassment ("a mesenger of Satan").
I've often been under the mindset that the thorn Paul had to fight/deal with was primarily a "sin issue" or a sickness, though that never made sense fully since it'd seem that the Lord already made clear that He often wished to help others OVERCOME sin rather than being stuck with sinful habits their entire life just so they could somehow know of God's power....and with sickness, it doesn't seem fully in line with scripture for the Lord to automatically give sickness to keep a believer from becoming prideful, as it often seems sickness was only placed upon others in times of SINNING actively against the Lord---and for those in Christ, I was always under the impression that the scriptures make clear believers had healing available in Christ/were to pray against sicknesses and ask for the Lord's mercy. It seemed to harmonize better for me when I decided to consider that perhaps the evil spirit/"Messenger of Satan" ( 2 Corinthians 12:1-10 ) could've been in the form of influencing others close to the victims of Paul to rise up against Him...similar to what occurred with Solomon when he began to fall into pride...with it being too late in the game since his pride caused the man to go into idolatry/sexual immorality.....and as a result, God chose to raise up adversaries for him ( 1 Kings 11:14-40 ).
In I Kings 5:4, Solomon told Hiram, in the midst of God's Blessing, that he had peace on every side (no adversary)....but now the blessing had departed and the peace was fractured....with the two men who had hitherto not caused Solomon significant problems being later raised up by God to oppose the apostate king of his old age, in the forms of Hadad (a victim of David's wars in II Samuel 8:13-14) and Rezon, who had apparently either escaped from the battle described in II Samuel 8:3-4 or fled from Hadadezer later, unwilling to submit to imperial rule. ................and with Solomon's most important enemy, Jeroboam, the man was found right on his doorstep as the former superintendent of the forced labor of the house of Joseph (i..e those who had been helping with the construction work in Jerusalem).
It would be an intriguing scenario to have others influenced by the enemy continually coming to Paul (if the man had some security issues/struggles with his past actions) to remind him of all he had done----bringing it to his face 24/7---and if the visions/amazing things the Lord did for Paul were done in the abscence of violence, then it'd make even more sense as to why it would've been nothing but blessing to have conflict arise that reminded him of how messed up he could've been...as people tend to fall hardest in times of great prosperity....and in times of difficulty, whatever great things God does are handled with better care since there's always a remidner of where it came from and not forgetting the Lord. Additionally, it may've been a bit of a shock to see how prosperous ministry had been before even with all of the struggles...only to have it get that much worse when even his own people began to doubt him. If used to a certain kind of climate where one still feels on top, having the "rug taken out of you" can be very vexing.
I'm reminded of the many ministers who sought GOD with all of their hearts when they were "small in their own eyes"---and when God gave dreams/visions and prophetic words, they'd always give credit to the Lord. But when they became well-known, there was a slow drift toward wanting all of God's Gifts while Minimziing the GIVER...and forgetting that at one point, they'd always acknowledge that anything good came solely from Him. ....and when things got to be rock-bottom, they'd cry out to God...who gave them grace to get throught it and remember that even if all others fall away, He never will---and was ALWAYS what it was always about. There's an awesome song my mother used to listen to all the time when she was studying to become an OB-Gyn....and having to remember that no matter how prosperous she'd become, God must be glorified.
For more info, one can go online/look up a song by the group known as Anointed called "Its Not the I--But the YOU in me"
