Yeah. I Thessalonians 5:16-17 is theologically bankrupt and it;s not in the Bible, either.
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
Are we talking about the secret, pretrib, "Left Behind"-style rapture of dispensational origins which has no support in Scripture, or are we talking just about the simple translation from mortal to immortal of those found alive on the earth at Christ's return?
The two ideas are not the same.
Very precious verses full of hope and vitality in our era!
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
= = = = =
For some reason, it persistently amazes me that those ranting and trashing and thrashing about THE RAPTURE rarely, if ever, offer any meaningful explanation of those verses and their likely future meaning.
I guess it fulfills their agenda sufficiently to just rant, thrash, trash, pontificate and otherwise dismiss others' views on such. No insights or ideas are needed. Kind of reminds me of the DIMRATS.
But one would think that at least occasionally there would be more of an earnest effort to try and understand what the meaning of those verses is, if it's not the conventional END TIMES one! LOL.
I guess some Scriptures are just not worth some people's time.