A Man Caught Up to the Third Heaven

In this section of Scripture, 2 Corinthians 10-12, Paul feels it is necessary to talk about his qualifications from a worldly standpoint since some "super-apostles" (false apostles with an arrogantly inflated opinion of themselves) were questioning his background. In a somewhat mysterious couple of verses (12:2-4) Paul says, "I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know--God knows. And I know that this man--whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows--was caught up to paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell."

Paul is humbly talking about himself here in the third person. The "third heaven" is mentioned as "paradise." "Third heaven" might be referring to the heaven beyond sky and beyond outer space. According to the People's Bible "fourteen years ago" would have "occurred prior to Paul's first missionary journey, during the time he was in Tarsus waiting for further direction from the Lord." As to the purpose of this event, the People's Bible says, "We can safely assume . . . that it was one way by which the Lord strengthened Paul for the years of missionary work that lay before him. In difficult days he could keep before his eyes the vision of the glory that one day would be his, as he writes to the Romans, 'I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us (8:18).'"