What Was Paul's Thorn in the Flesh? (2 Corinthians 12)
This passage gives every indication that the thorn in Paul's flesh is still a present reality and thus represents a prolonged, sustained pain. But what was the thorn?
Articles by Dane Ortlund
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8 Reminders in the Face of the Coronavirus Pandemic
These are strange days, days of fear, days of hysteria. In other words, days that simply bring all our latent anxieties up to the surface.
9 Wrong Ways to Read the Bible (And One Better Way)
The Bible is good news for us. Here are nine common but wrong ways to read the Bible, followed by the right way.
You don’t need to unburden or collect yourself and then come to Jesus. Your very burden is what qualifies you to come.
The crass references to hell we hear in everyday conversation shouldn’t dull the agonizing awareness all believers should have of the pains of hell.
6 Questions about Christ’s Heart for Sinners
We cannot present a reason for Christ to finally close off his heart to his own sheep. No such reason exists.
The Reason We Don't Feel the Weight of Our Sin
Just as we can hardly fathom the divine ferocity awaiting those out of Christ, it is equally true that we can hardly fathom the divine tenderness already resting now on those in Christ.
You Need Christ to Put Your Sin to Death
Christian salvation is fundamentally a matter of grace, rescue, help, deliverance—it is God invading our miserable little lives and triumphing gloriously and persistently over all the sin and self he finds.
We tend to project our natural expectations about who God is onto him instead of fighting to let the Bible surprise us into what God himself says.
Bible Q&A - Why Are There Two Testaments in the Bible?
Dane Ortlund answers why there are two testaments in the Bible.
Bible Q&A - What Is Hermeneutics?
Dane Ortlund discusses what hermeneutics are and why they are important.
Why It Matters That Jesus Was and Still Is Human
The impression often seems to be that the Son of God came down from heaven in incarnate form, spent three decades or so as a human, and then returned to heaven to revert back to his preincarnate state.
The psalms are poems that reflect the beauty of God himself and how he wants to enchant, allure, woo, and draw us up into him.
The Hidden Value of Pastoral Gentleness
As leaders of God’s people, we all long to make a difference for Christ. We don’t want to be unfruitful. The main reason to nurture gentleness is neither pragmatic nor historical, but biblical.
6 Times We See the Heart of Jesus in Action—and What It Means for Us
What we see Jesus claim with his words in Matthew 11:29, we see him prove with his actions time and again in all four Gospels. What he is, he does. His life proves his heart.
Bible Q&A - Why Read the Bible Every Day?
Dane Ortlund explains the purpose behind reading the Bible every day.
How the Book of Psalms Is Like No Other Biblical Book
The book of Psalms is special because it equips us to speak to God.
It Doesn’t Matter What Paul’s Thorn in the Flesh Was
The thorn’s purpose is to deflate the certainty that Paul would quietly become puffed up over his indescribable experience of heaven. And who wouldn’t, without a thorn to burst that bubble?
Do This Breathing Exercise for Healthy Christian Living
Think of Scripture and prayer as inhaling and exhaling because that shows the two necessarily go together.
Growth in Christ Is Not Just Personal Improvement
Jesus is not a concept. Not an ideal. Not a force. Growing in Christ is a relational, not a formulaic, experience. Who then is this person?
Are You Conveying the Loveliness of Christ to Your Kids?
Do our kids know the thing that will sustain and oxygenate them when other vital needs go unmet?
Why Study the Book of 2 Corinthians?
The Christian life is impossible to live without 2 Corinthians.
Bible Q&A - What Does the Bible Say About Swearing?
Dane Ortlund shares what the Bible says about swearing.
Advice for a New Christian Reading the Psalms
We want to read the Scripture, inhale it, and then exhale it out to God in whatever way makes sense for our own life.
Jesus isn’t like you. Even the most intense of human love is but the faintest echo of heaven’s cascading abundance.
When you come to Christ for mercy and love and help in your anguish and perplexity and sinfulness, you are going with the flow of his own deepest wishes, not against them.
Why We Need the Psalms of Lament
The Psalms help us express our pain to God, knowing that he hears our cries.
The whole Bible is from heaven, and the whole thing is profitable (2 Tim. 3:16). But different parts of the Bible serve us in different ways.
How Is Jesus Able to “Sympathize with Our Weaknesses”?
This truth is hard to believe because it is so wonderful: even though Jesus is now in heaven he is just as open and tender in his embrace of sinners and sufferers as when he was on earth.
Short Studies in Biblical Theology
One of the great advances in evangelical biblical scholarship over the past few generations has been the recovery of biblical theology.
How the Psalms Speak to All of Our Emotions
The Psalms are in the Bible to give a us a full range of ways to approach God. They're not just for those who are happy and they're not just for those who are in pain. They cover the whole range of emotions.
5 Things Jonathan Edwards Teaches Us about the Christian Life
Dane Ortlund talks shares five things Jonathan Edwards teaches us about the Christian life.
For the Joy before Him, Christ Came
When you come to Christ for mercy and love and help in your anguish and perplexity and sinfulness, you are going with the flow of his own deepest wishes, not against them.
What Is Distinct about the Theology of 2 Corinthians?
If otherwise vital Pauline notions such as “grace” and “law” are nowhere near the heart of Paul’s concerns in 2 Corinthians, what is the heart or center or core burden of this letter?
God gave his own Son as the final sacrifice so that your brokenness could be the only prerequisite to receiving God’s abundant mercy.
Jonathan Edwards gives us longings for God and for holiness that are more satisfying than even our best joys currently are.
Why You Must Leverage Your Self-Despair
There is a strange though consistent message throughout the Bible. We are told time and again that the way forward will feel like we’re going backward.
What Does Perfect Anger Look Like?
Christ got angry and still gets angry, for he is the perfect human, who loves too much to remain indifferent. And this righteous anger reflects his heart, his tender compassion.
What It Means That God Is Rich in Mercy
Nowhere else in the Bible is God described as rich in anything. The only thing he is called rich in is mercy. What does this mean?
Rather than dispensing grace to us from on high, Jesus gets down with us, he puts his arm around us, he deals with us in the way that is just what we need.
People are rebellious, even God’s people, but God himself insists on doing his people eternal good anyway.
It takes a lot of sermons and a lot of suffering to believe that God’s deepest heart is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger.”
When Jesus, the Clean One, touched an unclean sinner, Christ did not become unclean. The sinner became clean.
If God sent his own Son to walk through the valley of condemnation, rejection, and hell, you can trust him as you walk through your own valleys on your way to heaven.
It is in “our weaknesses” that Jesus sympathizes with us. His is a love that cannot be held back when he sees his people in pain.
Why Devotional Bible Reading Is Good Bible Reading
The purpose of reading the Bible devotionally is to commune with God and grow closer to him.
The Most Accessible Person in the Universe
Jesus is lowly, he's accessible. You don't have to go through security to get to him. You just have to humble yourself.
Understanding the Role of Justification
Theologically understood, justification is the moment—the event—that God declares a sinner righteous in his sight.
Why the Book of Psalms Is for You
The Psalms were written for ordinary Christians leading ordinary lives—lives marked by depression, discouragement, despair, frustration, or maybe even numbness toward God or anger toward others.
For all his resplendent glory and dazzling holiness, his supreme uniqueness and otherness, no one in human history has ever been more approachable than Jesus Christ.
The doctrine of the atonement reassures us with what Christ has done in the past, the doctrine of his intercession reassures us with what he is doing in the present.
We need to look to Christ. We need to draw our strength from him. The way we grow is simply by looking to Christ.
The atoning work of the Son, decreed by the Father and applied by the Spirit, ensures that we are safe eternally.
Do not minimize your sin or excuse it away. Raise no defense. Simply take it to the one who is already at the right hand of the Father, advocating for you on the basis of his own wounds.
All our human friendships have a limit to what they can withstand. But what if there were a friend with no limit?
Scripture: The Treasure of the Christian Life
When we immerse ourselves in Edwards's writings, we do not find him speaking of Scripture so much as speaking from it.
Christ’s Heart on Full Display
Jesus proves that he is gentle and lowly through his actions throughout his life and the pages of the Gospels.
Are we swimming in the mental and emotional universe of what God has told us our future is?
What Bible Reading and Eating Have in Common
Devotional Bible reading is vital for every believer in the same way that eating is vital for every human—it's just the way you're nourished. It's what you do to get stronger and grow.
What the Puritans Understood about the Human Heart
The genius of the Puritans was that they knew how to build bridges between Scripture and the human heart.
How Christ Has Changed Our Destiny
What does it mean to be united to Christ? It’s a little bit mysterious and elusive.
The whole reason we care about sound doctrine is for the sake of preserving God’s beauty,
Just as we can hardly fathom the divine ferocity awaiting those out of Christ, it is equally true that we can hardly fathom the divine tenderness already resting now on those in Christ.
How the Psalms Verticalize Our Lives
Meditation on the Psalms lifts our eyes and reminds us to be mindful of God.
The Amazing Truth at the Heart of the Psalms
The Psalms have an important message: God loves you.
Don't Go through Life Overcome with Guilt
The Psalms give us language to pray to God when we are guilty and seeking forgiveness.
Bible Q&A: What Was the Incarnation?
The incarnation was the quiet eruption in the middle of history of a mercy that defies comprehension—when, as C. S. Lewis put it, God wrote himself into the story.
What’s All This ‘Gospel-Centered’ Talk About?
A gospel-centered life is the only life that can truly be enjoyed, no matter your circumstances.
Reflections on Christian Publishing
Dane Ortlund reflects on what Christian publishing is.
Why Do We Need So Many Books on the Gospel?
This post by Dane C. Ortlund was originally published on May 25, 2011. We're reposting it as we celebrate Crossway's 75th anniversary.