While doing the Watchtower study for this week, from the June 1, 2005 issue, I was literally floored by paragraph 2: "After [Paul's] having prayed three times for relief from 'a thorn in the flesh,' he received Jehovah's reply: 'My undeserved kindness is sufficient for you; for my power is being made perfect in weakness.'" (2 Cor 12:8, 9)
Huh? "Jehovah's reply"??? I thought Paul said he "entreated the Lord"??? Since when, in Paul's mouth, does "the Lord" refer to Jehovah? Especially when Paul ends verse 9 with the statement, "that the power of the Christ may like a tent remain over me." Especially when Paul, at 1 Cor 8:6 says "There is actually to us one God the Father.....and there is one Lord, Jesus Christ." Paul is very plain here. Why do we distort and cloud his words?
Why can't we give the Lord Jesus Christ his due here, understanding that the reply to Paul's requests was from Jesus? Come to think of it, we seldom even utter the words, Lord Jesus Christ, unless we are quoting a Bible verse where the expression is used. According to the Watchtower of November 15, 1987 "it seems" that Paul must mean Jehovah here because Paul was praying, and "Jehovah [is] the one to whom prayers are directed." It is unconceivable to us that Paul could "pray" to Jesus.
Well, that's eisegesis, interjecting our 20th century viewpoint onto Paul's 1st century Christian thought. We might flinch at "praying" to Jesus, but the 1st century Christians were close enough to Christ to think nothing of it. (Acts 7:58)
Besides, the word used in 2 Cor 12 does not ordinarily mean "praying," but merely "requesting, imploring." Paul felt personally close enough to Jesus to make requests of him, or as even the NWT says, 'entreaties.' Such need not have been formal "prayers."
Unfortunately, we get hung up on that and refuse to give Jesus his due and completely distort the plain meaning of the Biblical passage: that Paul was entreating the Lord Jesus to come to his aid.
Rather, we have to inject Jehovah into everything. We refuse to "honor the Son as [we] honor the Father," which means that we do not really honor the Father either! (John 5:23)
Why are we afraid of letting a little Jesus into our lives???????