Bible Strands
2 Corinthians 12:2
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 it I do not know, but God knows.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Paul writes to the Corinthian church, defending his apostolic authority against rivals who claim superior credentials. He is mid-passage in a reluctant "boasting" about visions and revelations (v. 1).
The words — Οἶδα (oida, "I know") anchors the verse, yet Paul immediately undercuts it by not knowing the mode of the experience. Δεκατεσσάρων (dekatessārōn, "fourteen") is a precise, uncommon number in biblical narrative, lending the account a factual specificity.
The thread — The "caught up" language echoes 1 Thessalonians 4:17, and the trance or transport motif recurs in Acts 22:17 and Ezekiel 8:1.
Why it lands — Paul holds firm knowledge of the event alongside honest ignorance of its mechanism, asking the reader to accept that even the most extraordinary spiritual experience retains a boundary only God crosses.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Greek words
King James Version
I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven.
Cross-references
- Acts 22:17 Later, when I had returned to Jerusalem and was praying at the temple, I fell into a trance
- Ezekiel 8:1 In the sixth year, on the fifth day of the sixth month, I was sitting in my house, and the elders of Judah were sitting before me; and there the hand of the Lord GOD fell upon me.
- 1 Thessalonians 4:17 After that, we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord.
- Revelation 4:2 At once I was in the Spirit, and I saw a throne standing in heaven, with someone seated on it.
- 2 Corinthians 11:11 Why? Because I do not love you? God knows I do!
- Isaiah 57:15 For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in a high and holy place, and with the oppressed and humble in spirit, to restore the spirit of the lowly and revive the heart of the contrite.
- 1 Kings 18:12 I do not know where the Spirit of the LORD may carry you off when I leave you. Then when I go and tell Ahab and he does not find you, he will kill me. But I, your servant, have feared the LORD from my youth.
- Isaiah 45:24 Surely they will say of Me, ‘In the LORD alone are righteousness and strength.’” All who rage against Him will come to Him and be put to shame.
- Genesis 1:14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to distinguish between the day and the night, and let them be signs to mark the seasons and days and years.
- 1 Kings 8:27 But will God indeed dwell upon the earth? The heavens, even the highest heavens, cannot contain You, much less this temple I have built.