What was Paul’s thorn in the flesh?

What was Paul’s thorn in the flesh? Was Paul’s thorn in the flesh a physical ailment or a spiritual attack?

[Pravin_Yeshua_BTC]

I feel, (knowing Apostle Paul’s character) that he deliberately left the thorn vague on purpose for us to “fill in the blank” with our own thorns. The open endless of it is brilliant and reminds us God’s Grace is sufficient no matter what torment we go through in life.
Love Apostle Paul. ♥️

[KrissyJay]

To my knowledge Paul's thorn was persecution. No matter where he went he was persecuted

[paulkiragu]

In many spiritual traditions, healers are thought to be those who have experienced suffering themselves and have emerged stronger and more compassionate as a result. By this logic, Paul's "thorn in the flesh" could be seen as a kind of initiation into his role as a healer and teacher. Paul was a wounded healer

[asellusskind]

After studying about the spirit of death and having to deal with it myself and after studying Paul's words about what happened to him and what he has said, I believe the thorn could have been the spirit of death. Death was always trying to kill him so he couldn't proclaim the gospel. He knew that to die was gain and to live was fruitful labor for him. This tells me that the spirit of death could be whispering to him that he wants to die to gain. The spirit of death is sneaky as it says things like don't you want to be with your Lord? I want that more than anything so it has convinced me to agree with it before and that's how it keeps tormenting you because you keep agreeing with it. I could go on talking about this but I decided I should make a video about it.

[ravenofra]

Does the acknowledgement that grace was given to Paul suggest the thorn led Paul to sinful action at some point or is there a wider definition of the word grace that I am missing here?

[perryutanis]

Follower of God, many will enter fires because thorn in the flesh 😅

[SeerSeekingTruth]

This answer is not in the Spirit of truth. If you hold the trinity doctrine you will not operate in the spirit of the truth therefore you will not be able to understand the deeper meanings or mysteries of the scriptures. This was very inaccurate and mostly speculation.

[TrustinJC]

It is important to know what the thorn was that Paul says was in his flesh (2 Cor 12:7-9).
He says it was a messenger of Satan. So it pertains to a message (thoughts) that Satan tries to derail his ministry with. Now to understand what it was, we need to look at passages in scripture that speak of a thorn and of messengers of Satan. Regarding the thorn, we find in Numbers 33:55 that a thorn would be left in Israel if they fail to drive out all the inhabitants. Spiritually speaking than, it has to do with a sin that we struggle to overcome. This is made clear by way of a passage in the non canonical writing known as the Shepherd of Hermas. For it tells us that every person hears from two angels. The angel of righteousness speaks into our one ear while the angel of unrighteousness speaks into the other. So the thorn in his carnal mind/flesh is the angel of unrighteousness and his attempt to get Paul to commit a grievous sin. This notion is backed up by another statement of Paul's when he says in Romans 7:15-20 that he is a slave to sin and does what he does not want to do and doesn't do what he wants to do. He says that he does do what he hates. The thorn, therefore, is a sin that he has difficulty over coming. So what was this sin? Well, it is pretty clear that it was the sin of homosexuality. In essence, we see that Paul had no regard for women due to his homosexual desires. This is why he kept women under the thumb of men and why he never married.
Also of note is the fact that Daniel tells us the anti-Christ will have no regard for women. Paul than can be seen as being a prototype, or foreshadow of the coming anti-Christ.
What we see than, unfortunately, is that the Catholic Church was led into doctrine and theology based on the thoughts and teachings of a gay man that had no regard for women. This means the long standing tradition of priests being unable to marry is based on a wicked lie that stems from Paul's carnal nature.