“Kindly post the evidence by which “some researchers” trace the rapture/tribulation doctrine...”
Oh boy..you are in way over your head. Quix can site backwards and forward where the “calling up” is covered in the Bible. Now if you choose to poo-poo it and explain it all away there’s not much one can say. We will just consider you one of the end times “scoffers.
It is there clearly (although rapture is not the term used).
The Great Mystery, Blessed Hope, Called Up in the twinkling of an eye...it’s all there.
Merely quoting Scripture is not enough to convince me. A given passage of Scripture can be interpreted any way the reader likes, which is why there are so many denominations out there. Each denomination, of course, claims that it and it alone has the ability to correctly interpret Scripture “by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit”. No, I need an authority to explain to me what a given passage of Scripture means, and its place in the entire body of Christian teaching.
That authority is the Catholic Church. It was given this power directly by the Lord, who granted St. Peter the “Office of the Keys”. The Church, built upon the Rock of St. Peter, is the only authority I trust to tell me what Scripture means and how it applies to me.
Now, I know that many people do not accept the authority of the Church to do this — and that’s okay. It’s a shame, but I’m not here to sell anyone on the Catholic Church (that’s the Holy Spirit’s gig). However, since I myself have come to accept the teaching authority of the Church, any attempt to interpret Scripture that contradicts the two thousand years of Christian doctrine passed down by the Church is not going to convince me.
And neither the Catholic Church nor any of the Orthodox churches have ever taught that our Lord will appear in a “Coming 2.5” to take away the Christians, go back to Heaven, wait around for seven Earth years, then return again (Coming 3.0) to finish the story. None of the mainstream Protestant churches teach it, either — not the Lutherans, not the Calvinists, not the Methodists, Episcopalians, or Congregationalists. Most of the Baptist churches in America don’t teach it either. The only Christian groups who teach the rapture thing are ones that began in relatively recent years (i.e. since AD 1800). And, frankly, I’m not ready to ditch two millennia of Christian teaching on the say so of “theological n00bz”.
But, as a collector of End Times propaganda, I’m always up for a look at new material, the foamier the better. So bring it on. I like Quix, but more for the UFO stuff.
Thanks for your kind post.
The pretribulation, separate-from-the-Second Coming rapture of futurist dispensationalism is not found anywhere in the Bible. It was invented less than 200 years ago by some disgruntled Plymouth Brethren under the leadership of John Nelson Darby in England.