Why would Paul talk about the man of sin being revealed AFTER the Rapture as a REASON to not be shaken? If we are gone, why would Paul describe the second item to come? This seems quite pointless.
I use that all the time here on Free Republic, for the very same reason that Paul wrote it there... :-)
Someone says to me, "We're in the Tribulation period right now!"
I say to them, "Do you see the Antichrist?"
LOL ...
Or another way I put it, is..., "If you see the Antichrist, you're in the Tribulation period." And then, I'll go on to describe the Antichrist so they'll know what to look for, if they are looking for the Antichrist right now [but, of course, they won't find the Antichrist... :-) ...]
Star Traveler:
I don’t think the tribulation begins immediately after the antichrist is revealed. There may may be weeks or months or even YEARS between the fulfillment of 2 Thess 2:3 and the tribulation. We simply don’t know and aren’t told.
It seems we are told two things in 2 Thess 2:3:
1. Apostasy first
2. The antichrist is revealed
After THOSE two things...the rapture can happen at any second.
But the tribulation might not happen for a long time. It MAY begin immediately, but we simply don’t know.
Again, there is no definitive timeline between the rapture and the tribulation.
The ‘revealing’ of the antichrist is simply that: revealing.
It may just mean that Christians will ‘note’ the antichrist, while the rest of the world won’t even notice.