Sacred Sunday~II Corinthians Chapter 12/Paul's Visions

Corinthians 2 Corinthians: Chapter 12 Summary

He Had a Vision of Heaven. But wait! You want more, Corinthians? You got it. Let's talk visions. Paul's had those, too. One time, about fourteen years ago, Paul was "caught up to the third heaven." Yeah, that's right. Paul's had a vision that he was transported to Paradise. Boo-ya. He saw all kinds of  things. Things he can't even tell people about (God is pretty secretive about what's going on in Heaven). Every Paul Has His Thorn. Look, Paul hates all this bragging.  After he had this amazing vision of Heaven, Paul had some medical problems. He says, "a thorn was given to me in the flesh." That doesn't sound good. Whatever happened (it seems like some kind of illness), Paul prayed three times for the misery to just end already. Finally, God told him to knock it off: "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness."  When Paul comes for his third visit to Corinth, their money is still no good to him. After all, parents support their children, not the other way around. Paul is one proud papa. So even though Paul swears up and down that hasn't taken any money from them, there's still some suspicion around that he's somehow trying to scam the Corinthians. There are rumors floating around that Paul may be keeping a little bit of the money from the collection in Jerusalem for himself. Paul mentions Titus and the other guy he sent (remember them from chapter 9?) to defend himself. None of them have been dishonest at all. The Rumor Mill at Work. Look, everything Paul says is for their own good. He's heard rumors about all kinds of bad stuff: fights, jealousy, anger, selfishness, gossip, arrogance, sexual immorality. Things sound pretty juicy in Corinth. Paul is not looking forward to the heartache.