1 Thess 4:13 But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them who are asleep, that you sorrow not, even as others who have no hope.
14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also who sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.
Elsie, where is Jesus now? What does it mean to 'bring someone with HIM' from where they are? And as GOD brings them WITH JESUS, from whence does HE descend to the air around the Earth?
What will the dead in Christ receive at the sound of HIS calling their bodies from the grave? What did Paul teach regarding an immortal body and the gathering together unto HIM?
As you are now, alive in Christ, you have a corruptible body, a natural soul inherited from Adam, and an alive spirit. When you die/if you die before the Rapture, the corruptible body will return to the earth. Someday you will stand before the Bema Seat of Christ, in Heaven, and your deeds in the body will be 'weighed'. Some will shine like polished gold, some will be consumed as if by fire for they are as wood, hay, and stubble. But you will stand before the Bema Seat of Christ in a body fashioned for immortality to match your already even now immortal spirit alive in Christ.
Daniel was written to the Jews. It does not reveal the Church, the Church Age, or The Bride of Christ. That offering through Daniel DOES give a strong clue of some gap between the 69th week and the seventieth week. It even reveals that Messiah was cut off in His First appearing to be God with us. When you fail to discern the 'to whom' berses are speaking, wonderful details of God's working are missed.
The Rapture is for the Ekklesia, not for the Jews. The Ekklesia does not have differentiation between Jews and 'Greeks'. As Daniel put it in writing: Daniel 9:24 Seventy weeks are determined upon your people and upon your holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.
Prior to the Rapture, since Jesus returned to The Throne Room of God, if a Jew recognizes Jesus as truly Messiah come, that Jew is no longer a Jew by nature, he has become a member of the body of believers in Jesus as The One God sent, and is thus a member of the Ekklesia and will leave in the Rapture.
13 Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope.
14 For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.
15 According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep.
16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.
18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.
I'm encouraged! How 'bout the rest y'all???