[MHGinTN]

2 Thess 2:3: perhaps ‘apostasia’ has a double meaning? A falling away and a sudden departure.

[Cronos]

2 Thessalonians 2:3 - let's look at 2 Thessalonians as a whole shall we, instead of the rapturists policy of excerpting

[1] And we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of our gathering together unto him: [2] That you be not easily moved from your sense, nor be terrified, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by epistle, as sent from us, as if the day of the Lord were at hand. [3] Let no man deceive you by any means, for unless there come a revolt first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, [4] Who opposeth, and is lifted up above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, so that he sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself as if he were God. [5] Remember you not, that when I was yet with you, I told you these things?

Here St Paul is writing to the Thessalonians just before 64 AD

Rapturists have deceptive double vision at work here - rapturists like you MHG place the one event (the rapture) at the very start and apply all the rest of hte pssage to the second advent. Yet if that is true, why does not St. Paul make it clear that his readers would not be present to see this antichrist "proclaiming himself to be God"?

St. Paul is writing to encourage a group of Christians who were afraid they had been "left behind"! -- so then why does he not explicitly speak of the "blessed hope of the rapture" to comfort the worried Thessalonians? Nowhere in this passage is there even a mention of the rapture

The reason St. Paul does NOT mention the rapture as occuring before the appearance of the antichrist and before the second coming is simple: it never occured into his mind that anyone would believe Christ would rapture His Church before the final escahaton.

The ENTIRE passage is that the Church would be around to witness the man of lawlessness revealed

What is the Greek word used for temple in this verse? naos -- it is NEVER ONCE used by St. Paul to designate the Jerusalem 2nd temple of the Jews -- Paul ALWAYS uses the New Testament word for the Temple - hieron (1 Cor 9:13).

WHENEVER Paul uses the word naos he is referring to New Covenant temples.

Paul KNEW that Christ had prophesied the destruction of the 2nd temple within their generation

But they KNEW that the NEW temple was God's spiritual temple - in the new Jerusalem, the Church