Kim Marie

Thirsting deeply enough for the Word that we’re willing to let it renew our minds. Before We Begin Before we begin walking through Paul’s writings concerning grace, I would encourage you to stop and read 1 Corinthians 2 in its entirety. This is from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians as preserved in our New Testament, and it helps establish the posture from which I hope we approach everything that follows. Paul begins: “And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of...

In the previous article, Paul’s Thorn: Have We Made It Say Something It Never Said?, I asked a very simple question. When Paul asked the Lord three times that the thorn might depart from him, Jesus answered: “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” —2 Corinthians 12:9 Where is the “No”? What if we have spent generations reading refusal into a passage that is actually revealing provision? I believe that question deserves another walk through the...

There are certain interpretations of Scripture that have been repeated for so long that we rarely stop to ask whether Scripture actually says what we have been taught that it says. Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” may be one of them. I am only a few years into my own walk as a born-again believer. I grew up around Christians and around church, but when I began truly reading and studying the Bible for myself, I started noticing things that made me stop and ask questions. Paul’s thorn was one of...