To tell us that it would happen, otherwise we wouldn't know.
If you read the whole passage, instead of just that verse, you'll see that Paul is reassuring the believers about the fate of their loved ones who had already died.
To tell us that it would happen, otherwise we wouldn't know. If you read the whole passage, instead of just that verse, you'll see that Paul is reassuring the believers about the fate of their loved ones who had already died.
You have chosen to avoid the point I was making. Of course Paul was reassuring the believers as you have stated. What he was also doing was pointing out an order of events so that the readers of his epistles would not be deceived. By naming the resurrection of the dead in Christ as preceding the rapture of living saints, Paul was intending to destroy any false notion that the rapture could happen without the resurrection happening first.
Yet despite Paul's obvious intention, many pre-tribbers are acting like nothing else needs to happen before the rapture. How do they get around Paul's sequence of events? They claim that the resurrection preceding the rapture will be totally invisible and unknown! If that were true, then Paul would not have needed to mention it.
Pre-tribbers make a big deal about Jesus not wanting Mary to touch Him, and ignore His later being seen, touched, and seen eating food. Surely the first Person to embrace Jesus after His resurrection was God the Father. Mary would have to wait for her hug.