I always cannot comprehend how people can read 2Thessalonians 2 intently and come up with a conclusion other than a Pre-trib rapture. If the rapture is anything other than pre-trib, why are the Thessalonians admonished not to be "soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand."
I happened to do 1 and 2 Thessalonians today and I noticed another point that may reinforce the pre-trib rapture.
It is the idea of wrath.
Well, wrath could mean a lot of things in the whole biblical context but proper hermeneutics would need us to ask what did Paul understand when he wrote the word "wrath" in Thessalonians?
And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come. - 1Thess 1:10
Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost. - 1Thess 2:16
For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, - 1Thess 5:9
We all know 1Thess 5:9 and we have been debating over it forever... what type of wrath are we not appoint to?
1Thess 1:10 is of the same vein.
Perhaps in 1Thess 2:16, Paul is defining for us that wrath... it is the wrath that is stored up against the Jews...
starting from verse 14
For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus: for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews: 15 Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; F3 and they please not God, and are contrary to all men: 16 Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost.
Smack in the middle of 2 mentions of wrath, is this verse about the wrath stored up for the Jews who killed our Lord Jesus Christ. I would think that the wrath that we are not appointed to, refers to this wrath is that stored up for the Jews.
When does the rapture happen? From what I understand about eschatology and what happens in the end-times, the rapture must happen first, then the wrath reserved for the Jews (and also the world) will be poured out which eventually would result in the salvation of the Jews.
Hallelujah! Maranatha!