The Gospel According To Thorns

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THORNS

VARIOUS PASSAGES

#thorns

INTRODUCTION

Every week when I mow my yard I come around a particular large bush that was planted around my propane tank I just get shredded on whatever arm and leg that happens to be on the inside as I try to mow around it. The bush has thorns. The rose bushes that I have planted in the front of my house that survived from last year all have thorns on them. The main character’s name in a fictional series I am reading right now is named “Thorn.” I have thorns on the brain.

I want you to have thorns on the brain.

THORNS

Thorns are a stiff, sharp-pointed projection from the stem or other part of a plant. When I think of thorns, I think of them all down the stalk of a plant. When we think of thorns we think of other words like sharp, spiky, prickles, barbs, bristles, spine… and other pointy-type words.

Believe it or not, thorns appear very early in the Bible. Thorns are specifically used by God to illustrate, among some other truths, how the world changed because of sin. God outlines some of these changes in Genesis 3.

READ GENESIS 3:14-19 (ESV)

The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. 15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” 16 To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.” 17 And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; 18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

YHWH God outlines some of the impact that sin makes on the serpent, women, men, and all of Creation. We see right away in Genesis 3 that everything God created was and is impacted by the presence of sin. If you aren’t sure what the word “sin” means, “sin” is anything opposite of what God wants for us and against His divine design. Sin is missing the mark. Sin is failing to be whole and holy as defined by God. Interestingly, Genesis 3:18 points out that one of the results of sin is that plants will have thorns. I personally feel like thorns did not exist before Adam and Eve sinned because God specifically mentions them as a result of sin.

What does that mean? Every time I get too close on the mower when I circle the bush in my yard and get scraped and draw blood, is a result of sin. I might also sin every so often in what comes out of my mouth as the thorns rake down my arms, but that is probably a different sermon.

Interestingly, in Exodus 3, as God speaks to Moses from a bush on Mount Sinai, the specific Hebrew word that is used for the bush that is on fire but is not consumed… is thorn bush. That is a minor use of the word “thorn” in the Bible as clearly Moses is just describing the kind of bush from which the Almighty God of the Universe spoke to him. It is still interesting.

THORNS

The words thorn and thorns is used 53 times in the Bible. 38x in the Old Testament and 15x in the New Testament.

The next major use of “thorns” in the Bible in my opinion comes in the Book of Numbers in the Old Testament and shares with us something very significant.

READ NUMBERS 33:50-56 (ESV)

And the Lord spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho, saying, 51 “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you pass over the Jordan into the land of Canaan, 52 then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you and destroy all their figured stones and destroy all their metal images and demolish all their high places. 53 And you shall take possession of the land and settle in it, for I have given the land to you to possess it. 54 You shall inherit the land by lot according to your clans. To a large tribe you shall give a large inheritance, and to a small tribe you shall give a small inheritance. Wherever the lot falls for anyone, that shall be his. According to the tribes of your fathers you shall inherit. 55 But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those of them whom you let remain shall be as barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall trouble you in the land where you dwell. 56 And I will do to you as I thought to do to them.”