We all know the story of Eden as a former place of paradise on earth from where Adam and Eve were evicted by God because of sin. But where can we find paradise in the Bible now that mankind has lost it?

Today’s short take from Scripture will take us on a brief journey we find in the New Testament.

The real question of DEATH is ‘What then?’

We have just witnessed an brief scene of Stephen at the point of his death in Acts 7.

55 But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed steadily into heaven and saw the glory of God, and he saw Jesus standing in the place of honor at God’s right hand.

“Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”

Acts 7:56b NASB – a final witness of Stephen before the Sanhedrin

Jesus also gives us several glances at life after death in the Gospel. And we could be taken up into John’s vision of heaven in Revelation.

But today’s Short Take on Paradise comes from Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians.

What is Paradise?

I know a man in Christ, who fourteen years ago— .. was caught up into Paradise and heard inexpressible words, which a man is not permitted to speak.

2 Corinthians 12:2a,4 NASB20

Could this have been at the moment when Jesus met this man on the road from Jerusalem to Damascus? Paul later writes about his own imminent death as if he prefers it!

What does Paul mean by παράδεισος: Paradise?

And what’s your short take on this definition?

παράδεισος :: Strong’s G3857 – paradeisos

Outline of Biblical Usage

1. among the Persians a grand enclosure or preserve, hunting ground, park, shady and well watered, in which wild animals, were kept for the hunt; it was enclosed by walls and furnished with towers for the hunters
2. a garden, pleasure ground
3. grove, park
4. the part of Hades which was thought by the later Jews to be the abode of the souls of pious until the resurrection: but some understand this to be a heavenly paradise
5. the upper regions of the heavens. According to the early church Fathers, the paradise in which our first parents dwelt before the fall still exists, neither on the earth or in the heavens, but above and beyond the world
6. heaven

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Let’s Talk of Jesus and our possibility in Paradise

Want to know my opinion from Scripture and experience?

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