Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
2 Corinthians 12:1-10, Caught up to the third heaven; the thorn
Paul tells of a man caught up to the third heaven and into paradise who heard things no one may utter, then of the thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, which God would not remove because his power is made perfect in weakness.
2 Corinthians 12:1-10, in every translation this tool compares.
Pushed further into boasting, Paul tells of someone he knows, joined to Christ, who was taken up fourteen years earlier to the third heaven, into paradise, and heard things no one may repeat. To keep him from pride, he was given a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan. He asked three times for it to be removed, but the Lord told him that grace was enough and that power reaches its full strength in weakness, so Paul is content with weakness, because it is then that he is strong.
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- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/orators-and-sophists\/","n":"Orators, rhetoric and boasting","s":"Public speaking was the great skill of the Greek city. Traveling orators performed for crowds and gathered paying students, audiences judged them on voice and gesture as well as argument, and the fans of rival speakers boasted of their own man against the rest.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/the-satan\/","n":"The satan, the tempter","s":"The accuser, tempter and deceiver of Jewish belief, seen as the power behind human and political evil. In the Gospels he tests Jesus and is the strong man Jesus binds, and John calls him the ruler of this world.","r":""}
Telling the story in the third person was a way to avoid boasting, and the cultural backgrounds article on the third heaven thinks Paul means himself (Keener; the ESV and CSB Study Bibles). Some Jewish mystics sought visions of God's throne by fasting and meditation, but Paul is caught up without seeking it (the article). Jewish sources counted three, seven or more heavens; Paul's third heaven, where he places paradise, probably means the highest, where God is (the article). The Zondervan dictionary notes that later Jews divided the heavens into seven, and that paradise, a Persian word for a park, meant Eden in the Greek Old Testament before it came to mean the place of final bliss. Carson, Moo and Morris suggest the rivals faulted Paul for saying little about visions. Wright compares the thorn to the slave who whispered to a triumphing general that he too was mortal. What the thorn was is disputed. Keener suggests persecution or the rival teachers; the ESV Study Bible and the dictionary say most commentators prefer a physical condition, and Arnold thinks it an illness caused by an evil angel, arguing that Paul would not pray to be spared opposition.
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on 2 Corinthians 12:2-4 and 12:7-8
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on 2 Corinthians 12:7, and article Paul's Experience of the Third Heaven
- ESV Study Bible, study notes on 2 Corinthians 12:2-3 and 12:7
- CSB Study Bible, note on 2 Corinthians 12:2-3
- N. T. Wright, Paul for Everyone: 2 Corinthians, comment on 2 Corinthians 12:1-10
- J. D. Douglas and Merrill C. Tenney, Zondervan Illustrated Bible Dictionary, entries heaven, paradise and thorn in the flesh
- D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo and Leon Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament, ch. 9, 1 and 2 Corinthians, The Integrity of 1 and 2 Corinthians
- Clinton E. Arnold, Powers of Darkness, ch. 9, Direct and Immediate Influence with Physical Symptoms, with note
