Thorns and Thistles....

[Criada]

I have to write an essay on thorns and thistles in scripture...
I have an outline and I think I know where i am going... but if anyone has any insight, I'd be grateful for your ideas

One interesting point... did they exist before Genesis 3:17?

 

[MrJim]

What an interesting topic~was it assigned?

Who knows if they existed before the fall~generally thorns/thistles are a defensive sorta thing and since all was "perfect" in Eden then you'd think maybe there as no need but that's just musing..

 

[Nadiine]

ya I agree it is an interesting topic.
I don't know anything profound to offer unfortunately =)~

One thing that does come to mind is that it proves that the OT is still in effect today becuz all the curses placed on them and the earth still continue: death, weeds, hard labor, pain in childbirth & the husband's "rule" over the woman
http://www.biblebb.com/files/mac/gen316curse2.htm

I think it's important in proving the OT isn't obsolete just becuz we're under grace today.

 

[SolomonVII]

The only thing that I can recall about thorns in the Bible is the idea of God 'providing the sacrifice' in the stead of Isaac by providing a ram with his horns tangled in a thorn bush.

Likewise Jesus was led up Golgotha with his own head crowned in thorns.

 

[SolomonVII]

It is kind of interesting to think of this in terms of the same idea from the perspective of Matthew 7:16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

Considering that God appeared to Moses as a burning thorn bush

Exo 3:2 And the Angel of Jehovah appeared to him in a flame of fire, out of the midst of a thorn bush. And he looked. And behold! The thorn bush burned with fire! And the thorn bush was not burned up.

, ye shall know them by their fruits take on a special eucharistic message here. The eternal flame that never burns out is a direct vision of God, and also an allusion to the idea that suffering even unto death are not great enough to extinguish Jesus, who showed himself to be the very same angel of the Lord crowned as he was in his own bush of thorns.

With thorns and thistles so often used in the bible to symbolize fields gone feral and worthless, yet it is out of the thorns that God first appears to Moses, out of the thorns of suffering and the lifeless wood of the crucifix that Jesus provides Himself as the fruit of the Tree of Life.

So the answer to Matthew 7:16 is paradoxically both yes and no. In the usual course of events, fields gone feral with thistles and thorns produce nothing of value. Such conventional wisdom that we live by in ordinary times however is only part of the story.

Through God all things are possible.

In the debts of greatest suffering, in the center of a dry lifeless desert where only thorns grow, inexplicably, God is still with us. God gives us life through the suffering that we endure.

 

[Criada]

Thanks... I had forgotten the ram in the thorn bush...
The idea that thorns and thistles represent God's curse on the land, often throughout the OT in response to the people's disobedience... and yet it is from a thorn bush that He speaks to lead them from captivity.
And the crown of thorns, sign of the curse, is broken when Jesus rises.

 

[Nadiine]

Thanks... I had forgotten the ram in the thorn bush...
The idea that thorns and thistles represent God's curse on the land, often throughout the OT in response to the people's disobedience... and yet it is from a thorn bush that He speaks to lead them from captivity.
And the crown of thorns, sign of the curse, is broken when Jesus rises.

And I'd assume that after God restores and renews the earth to its future glory, that there won't be any more thorns & thistles anymore.
I don't think that's mentioned in any verses, but as I think about it, I would think God's curse is then removed once sin is judged and sentenced eternally to be separated from His new restoration.

(how wonderful that will be)

Soli Deo Gloria

 

[wingsofworship]

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[wingsofworship]

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[Criada]

Thank you, I'll look into that, it's a very interesting addition