Tuesday May 31, 2022

Happy Tuesday! I pray  everyone had a great long weekend, and a good time in the Lord's house on Sunday. I enjoyed watching my son preach on Sunday. I am very proud of him.  Today we are looking at
​1 Thess. 4: 13-18
13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. 15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.

Although the Apostle Paul wrote these passages to comfort the early church, these passages have ended up dividing believers over time. I think if Paul were around today, he would be very frustrated at the division that some of his letters have caused. It was not Paul's intention to present a "post, pre, or mid-tribulation" view of the rapture or seconding coming of Christ. Paul wanted to encourage the early church that the men and women who passed away are not simply "gone", but that we will, one day, be reunited fellow Christians that went on before us.