Paul’s Thorn in the Flesh (5)
Acts 28:3 Paul had gathered a bundle of brushwood and was putting it on the fire, when a viper, driven out by the heat, fastened itself on his hand. 28:4 When the natives saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another, "This man must be a murderer; though he has escaped from the sea, justice has not allowed him to live." 28:5 He, however, shook off the creature into the fire and suffered no harm. 28:6 They were expecting him to swell up or drop dead, but after they had waited a long time and saw that nothing unusual had happened to him, they changed their minds and began to say that he was a god.
Does this sound like a man suffering from a physical malady that God refused to heal? If Paul had had physical problems that God wouldn’t heal, in spite of his persistent requests, then when this poisonous viper attached itself suddenly to Paul, his first reaction would have been, “Is this something else now that I am supposed to have?” That never crossed his mind. How do we know? The Bible is pretty good about telling us what a person is thinking when that is relevant to the story. What is relevant here is that Paul gave it no thought.
What is interesting too was that Luke, the physician, was with Paul. Paul didn’t even ask Luke for some medicine, just in case. You would think that with a doctor present, that should have been Paul’s first course of treatment. But he didn’t even think he would need treatment.
Paul then proceeded to heal every person on the island. It doesn’t even say that Paul preached to the people. And Luke just watched and recorded all this for our benefit.
No comments:
Post a Comment