Paul’s celebrated “thorn in the flesh,” the speculations are endless and at times sound like entries in a medical encyclopedia.90 Perhaps our best clue is what he plainly says, an angel of Satan (i.e., a demon) was allowed to afflict him, without specifying what such harassment involved. It well might have been some sort of physical ailment, but it just as well could have been an internal battle within his mind, such as he alludes to in Roman 7:15-20 and his struggles with “lust.”
