Trance

Trance (Greek ekstasis, from which the English word "ecstasy" derives) describes a state in which a person is temporarily removed from normal sensory awareness and receives divine revelation. In the New Testament, Peter falls into a trance (ekstasis) while praying on a rooftop in Joppa and receives the vision of the sheet containing unclean animals, through which God prepares him for the conversion of Cornelius (Acts 10:10; 11:5). Paul describes a trance in the Jerusalem temple in which the Lord appeared to him and commanded him to leave the city and go to the Gentiles (Acts 22:17). His account in 2 Corinthians 12:1–4 of being "caught up to the third heaven" may also describe such an experience, though he uses different vocabulary there. The trance is thus associated in the New Testament specifically with moments of pivotal divine direction expanding the mission of the church beyond Jewish boundaries.