Big Healing Book - Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance Says That the Greek Word for

Objection: Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance Says That the Greek Word for Paul’s “Thorn” Is Figuratively a Bodily Annoyance or Disability

Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance does indeed say that the Greek word skolops that is translated “thorn” means “figuratively, a bodily annoyance or disability.”

His literal definition is something “withered at the front, i.e. a point or prickle.” That is all the word literally means. When Strong said that it meant something “figuratively,” he was adding his own predisposition to it that was commonly accepted (and still is, in many circles). That stepped into the realm of interpretation rather than merely stating the literal meaning of the word. Neither Strong nor Thayer produced any proof that the word was figurative of sickness in any other Greek literature or anywhere else in the Bible.

The particular Greek word only appears once in the Bible in the passage about Paul’s thorn. There is certainly NO indication from Scripture itself that it could ever mean sickness. You have to be careful of such reference works, as they sometimes have definitions colored by the author’s predispositions.

The point of the phrase “thorn in the flesh” was that something was an annoyance to Paul, not necessarily a bodily one. It is similar to saying, “Unbelieving literature is a real pain in the butt,” which does not mean that reading objections to divine healing causes real butt pain.

Books like Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance are often useful, but they do not have the same weight as Scripture itself!