Topics · Prayer · Lesson 5 of 6
The Thorn and the Cup: Following Jesus When the Answer Is No
How do I keep trusting Jesus when prayer is not answered the way I asked?
By the end of this lesson you should be able to
- Explain what Paul asked, how often, and what answer he received in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10.
- Trace the three rounds of Jesus' prayer in Gethsemane and explain what 'not as I will' means.
- Compare the main readings of the statement that Jesus 'was heard' in Hebrews 5:7.
- Identify how Mark 11:22-25 and James 5:13-18 are used by 'faith' teaching, its critics, and other traditions.
Scripture at the center
; ;
Tap a reference to read it, then come back to the lesson.
Background
Every follower of Jesus meets the same problem: the promises about prayer are large, and some prayers are not granted. Scripture does not hide this. The psalmists cry out to a God who seems not to answer (; ), and Habakkuk asks how long he must call (). This unit takes the three passages where the person praying is the most faithful one in view: Paul, an apostle, and Jesus, the Son. If a refusal can meet them, a refusal cannot by itself be a verdict on anyone's faith.
belongs to Paul's sharpest defence of his apostleship, written in the mid-50s to a church where rivals boasted of visions and power. Paul answers by boasting in his weakness. He mentions a vision fourteen years earlier (), and then the thorn that followed it. Hebrews, written to Christians under pressure, looks back on Gethsemane, the night of Jesus' arrest.
Scholars disagree about the thorn, and the disagreement is old. Some think of a bodily illness. Others, Chrysostom among them, thought of human opponents, since thorns in the side are an Old Testament picture for hostile neighbours (; ). The text names no illness. A second question concerns Hebrews 5:7: in what sense was Jesus 'heard' if the cup was not taken away?
Outline
- A thorn, three requests, one answer
- Gethsemane: the cup and 'not as I will'
- Three prayers and sleeping friends
- The prayer that was heard
- Promises read as guarantees
- Prayer for the sick
How to read it
These passages are narrative and testimony, not promises, so the first rule is to read what happened. Paul reports one episode of his life inside a letter built on irony. Matthew tells the Gethsemane scene with almost no comment. None says 'when you pray, expect this'. They show that a refusal can sit inside a life of faith, even the life of the Son.
The second rule is to let the whole canon speak. The large promises (; ; ) are real, and attaches 'according to his will' to them. The narratives of refusal stand beside the promises and do not cancel them. Mark's Gospel holds both and .
The third rule separates description from prescription. Paul's 'three times' is not a quota, and Jesus' three rounds are not a method. Nothing here makes illness a sign of failed faith: Scripture names faithful people who were sick, among them Epaphroditus (), Trophimus (), Timothy () and Paul in Galatia ().
What the Scriptures say
A thorn, three requests, one answer
Paul says the thorn was given 'to keep me from becoming conceited' after 'surpassingly great revelations'. The verb is passive: it 'was given'. Paul calls its source 'a messenger of Satan', yet Scripture elsewhere lets Satan act only within God's limits (; ). The pain is ongoing and personal: the Greek means a sharp point, and the verb for 'torment' means to strike with the fist.
Then Paul tells his prayer: 'Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.' 'The Lord' is most likely Jesus, because the answer speaks of 'the power of Christ'. The reply comes in Jesus' own voice: 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness.' The Greek tense says the word has been spoken and stands. It refuses the request, gives something else, and attaches a reason. Augustine, in his letter to Proba, used the passage to show that even an apostle did not know what to pray for as he ought. Paul will 'boast all the more gladly' in his weaknesses: 'For when I am weak, then I am strong.' This does not praise suffering. It claims that Christ's strength shows where human strength gives out.
Gethsemane: the cup and the Father's will
Gethsemane means 'oil press'. Jesus takes Peter and the two sons of Zebedee and begins 'to be sorrowful and deeply distressed', saying 'My soul is consumed with sorrow to the point of death.' He falls 'facedown' and prays: 'My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me. Yet not as I will, but as You will.' The cup is an Old Testament picture of God's judgment (; ).
The request is honest and specific, limited by 'if it is possible', and placed under the Father's will.
- The second prayer changes: 'if this cup cannot pass unless I drink it, may Your will be done.' Jesus now treats the refusal as the shape of the answer.
- The third time he prays 'the same thing', then rises to meet his betrayer (). To the sleeping disciples he says: 'Watch and pray so that you will not enter into temptation. For the spirit is willing, but the body is weak.' The cup is not removed, yet the Gospel shows no failure of trust. He still says 'My Father'.
The prayer that was heard
The writer says that Jesus 'offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the One who could save Him from death, and He was heard because of His reverence.' Matthew's Gethsemane records no loud cries, so commentators think the writer draws on Gethsemane or gathers several moments of anguish, the cross included.
How was he 'heard' if the cup stayed? Two main answers are given. The Father heard him by saving him out of death, that is, by raising him ( speaks of God bringing Jesus up from the dead). Or the Father heard him by strengthening him to go through; some link this with , though manuscript support for that verse is mixed. The word eulabeia, 'reverence', says the prayer was heard because it was prayed in submission, not because it won its terms.
Then: 'Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from what He suffered.' He did not learn to leave disobedience, for he was without sin (). He learned obedience by walking it to the end.
The promises read the other way
Two passages are used in the opposite direction, and an honest lesson names them. In Jesus, after cursing the fig tree and cleansing the temple, tells the disciples to have faith in God, says a mountain can be thrown into the sea, and tells them to believe that they have received what they ask. 'Faith' teachers read this as a general rule. Many scholars read 'this mountain' as the temple mount, so that the saying concerns the fall of the old order and trust in God, not a licence for every wish. The same Gospel records Gethsemane.
is the second text. The sick are to call the elders, who pray and anoint with oil in the Lord's name, and the prayer offered in faith will save the sick person (). Readers differ on whether 'save' means bodily healing, spiritual salvation or both, and whether the prayer of faith is a general promise or a faith given for the occasion. James also cites the endurance of Job (), whose story is not one of quick relief.
Key terms
- thorn skolops
- A pointed object: a stake, splinter or thorn. The word does not name an illness.
- to torment kolaphizō
- Literally to strike with the fist, to batter: repeated blows.
- is sufficient arkei
- Present tense: grace is enough and keeps being enough, in place of the removal Paul asked for.
- consumed with sorrow perilypos
- Hemmed in by grief; Jesus' own report of his state ().
- reverence eulabeia
- Godly fear; the submission in which the prayer of was heard.
In the whole Bible
The canon holds three things together. God invites asking without limit. God also keeps his own wisdom: the promises carry the condition 'according to his will' (), and admits that believers do not know how to pray as they should. And Scripture gives the sufferer a voice that does not hide pain: the lament psalms (; ), , and the martyrs who ask how long ().
The Bible places the full answer later. Creation groans and believers wait for the redemption of their bodies (), the raised body is raised in power where the present body is weak (), and God will wipe away every tear (). Healing now, where it comes, is a sign of that end and not its full arrival.
Where Christ is
Jesus is both pattern and ground. As pattern, he prays the plainest request of his life, receives the Father's refusal, and stays inside the relationship: 'My Father'. Andrew Murray, in his lesson on Gethsemane, wrote that the Son 'endured the not answering of His prayer, that our prayers might find an answer'. As ground, the cup he drank removes final condemnation (), and he now intercedes for believers (). adds that this high priest sympathises with weakness.
and together suggest that the Father heard the Son by raising him, so the refusal of the cup and the hearing of the prayer meet at the empty tomb. Paul sees the same shape in himself: Christ was crucified in weakness and lives by God's power (). A tentative echo: Paul's three requests and Jesus' three prayers () may be parallel, but the text does not say so.
How traditions read it
Cessationist or cautionist. B. B. Warfield, Counterfeit Miracles (1918), argued that miraculous gifts authenticated the apostles and passed away with them; Richard Gaffin, Perspectives on Pentecost (1979), and John MacArthur, Strange Fire (2013), defend related positions. These writers generally add that God still heals in answer to prayer, through providence and means.
Continuationist. Pentecostal, charismatic and some Reformed writers expect healing as the New Testament describes it: Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (1994); Jack Deere, Surprised by the Power of the Spirit (1993); Sam Storms, Practicing the Power (2017); John Wimber, Power Healing (1987). As these books describe it, healing is real but not guaranteed.
Sacramental and other Protestant. Catholic and Orthodox churches anoint the sick on the basis of , praying for healing and strength without promising a cure. Most Anglican, Lutheran, Reformed, Baptist and Wesleyan churches pray for the sick and leave the outcome to God.
'Faith' teaching and its critics. E. W. Kenyon (Jesus the Healer) and Kenneth Hagin (Healing Scriptures) root healing in the atonement and in and teach believers to claim it. Critics such as Gordon Fee (The Disease of the Health and Wealth Gospels, 1985) and Bruce Barron (The Health and Wealth Gospel, 1987) argue that this cannot be squared with Paul's thorn, Gethsemane or the sick faithful in the New Testament, and that it blames the sick.
This lesson takes no side between cessationists and continuationists. It follows the three anchor passages: a refusal is not a sign of absent faith.
How praying people lived this
David Brainerd 1718-1747 · Reformed (New England Congregational heritage)
Brainerd was a young missionary to Native Americans, among them the Delaware. His diary records fasting and nights of prayer for them, in years of poor health and low spirits. Jonathan Edwards, who edited it, describes the time before 1745 as 'agonizing in prayer' with 'disappointments and encouragements'. Brainerd died of tuberculosis at Northampton on 9 October 1747, aged 29.
Caveats: Edwards shaped the diary, and the mission shows paternalism toward Native peoples that this lesson does not endorse.
The principle: Persistent prayer is not promised the result the pray-er pictures.
“The desired event is brought to pass at last; but at a time, in a place, and upon subjects, that scarce ever entered his heart.”
George Müller 1805-1898 · Brethren
Müller ran orphan houses in Bristol and kept records of requests and answers, refusals included. He prayed especially for his aged father's conversion in the last year of the old man's life; on 7 April 1840 he recorded that his father had died on 30 March, and that he had not been given to see the answer.
Caveat: his reports of answers are his own, not independent audits.
The principle: He kept recording what was asked and what came, including answers he did not see.
“it did not please the Lord to let me see the answer to my prayers”
Enslaved Christians in the American South before 1865 · Black Baptist and Methodist, with African roots
Former slaves interviewed in the 1930s recalled secret meetings in woods and hollows, later called hush harbors, where they sang and prayed, often for freedom. One account describes an overturned iron pot used to catch the sound. Many prayed for decades and died before emancipation in 1865.
Caveats: the interviews date from 1936-38, about seventy years after the events, and were taken by mostly white interviewers; some accounts are second-hand.
The principle: They prayed together, for freedom and for the repentance of those who held them, across generations of waiting.
Evan Roberts 1878-1951 · Welsh Calvinistic Methodist
The Dictionary of Welsh Biography says Roberts confessed to praying for thirteen years for a revival in Wales. The revival of 1904-05 followed. By about 1906 he had withdrawn from public view, and he died in Cardiff in 1951.
Caveats: the reasons for his withdrawal are disputed (overwork, depression, or both), and the sources do not say what he prayed for himself. The lesson claims only that a long prayer, answered, did not shield the one who prayed it.
The principle: Church leaders insisted that the revival was not 'the Evan Roberts revival'; the work belonged to God.
The Balokole of East Africa 1930s onward · Anglican, later across denominations
The East African Revival began in the 1930s among Anglicans in Rwanda and Uganda and spread through lay fellowships. Blasio Kigozi (1909-1936), a Ugandan deacon at Gahini, brought the message Zukula! ('Awake!') to the church and died young, before the synod met. Yosiya Kinuka (1905-1981) later directed a camp for Rwandan refugees in Uganda. The fellowships also divided over discipline.
Caveat: this rests on scholarly summaries, not Balokole prayers, and Ugandan Christians should review it.
The principle: Kevin Ward summarises the movement's life as a return to the Cross in brokenness and confession, not a promise of ease.
“a continual returning to the Cross in brokenness and confession”
Review questions
- In , what does Paul say the thorn was given to prevent, how many times did he ask, and what exactly did the Lord say in reply?
- How do the three rounds of prayer in differ from one another, and what does Jesus say to the disciples about watching and praying?
- Compare the two main readings of 'He was heard' in . What other New Testament verse supports each?
- Why are and usually discussed beside this unit, and which people in the New Testament are named as sick or nearly dying while serving Christ?
- What do cessationist and continuationist writers share in how they treat prayer for the sick, and what do critics of 'faith' teaching say it cannot explain?
Read further
With Christ in the School of Prayer (Lesson 28 on Gethsemane) · Andrew Murray, 1885 free to read
A devotional series of lessons on prayer. The Gethsemane lesson argues that the Son's request was refused and that this was part of the Father's saving purpose, and so makes a 'no' an answer.
Read it in AideLetter 130, to Proba · Augustine of Hippo, c. 412 free to read
A pastoral letter on how to pray. It uses Paul's thorn and Gethsemane to argue that believers do not know what to ask for as they should, and that God's refusal can be a form of care.
Read it ↗The Life of David Brainerd · David Brainerd, ed. Jonathan Edwards, 1749 free to read
The missionary's diary with the editor's framing. It records years of prayer, illness and low spirits before the 1745 change.
Read it in AideThe Life of Trust · George Müller, ed. H. L. Wayland, 1837-1845 narratives free to read
Müller's own dated entries on prayer and provision, including his report of his father's death in 1840. Read with the knowledge that the compiler shaped the selection.
Read it in AideReligion of the enslaved: selections from the WPA slave narratives · Federal Writers' Project interviews, 1936-1938 free to read
First-person recollections of hush harbors and secret prayer. The transcripts are in dialect and were taken decades later, so they are best read with Raboteau's study beside them.
Read it ↗Counterfeit Miracles · B. B. Warfield, 1918 free to read
The classic cessationist argument: miraculous gifts authenticated the apostles and ceased with them. Written before the Pentecostal movement became widespread, it does not address it.
Read it ↗The Disease of the Health and Wealth Gospels · Gordon D. Fee, 1985 link only
A short critique by a Pentecostal New Testament scholar, who argues from Paul's letters that the health-and-wealth message misreads Scripture.
Slave Religion: The 'Invisible Institution' in the Antebellum South · Albert J. Raboteau, 1978 link only
The standard history of enslaved Christianity. It draws on narratives, missionary reports and folklore to show how a distinct Black Christian faith grew in secret and in public.
Tukutendereza Yesu: The Balokole Revival in Uganda · Kevin Ward, n.d. link only
A scholarly history of the East African Revival in the Dictionary of African Christian Biography, covering its fellowships, confession practice and internal disputes. Openly licensed, not public domain.
Find it ↗
Prepared with AI assistance from public-domain sources and other books' published teaching. A scholar's review is still to come; if you spot anything to correct, please tell us.
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