1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 and “rapture”
Paul is using familiar imagery of a greeting committee going out to meet a returning king and to welcome him into the city. It is much like the liturgy we find in Psalm 24:7-10. As the king and his entourage return to the city, the herald goes before the king and blows the trumpet to alert those on the city walls that the king has arrived and should be properly welcomed. Then the greeting committee goes to meet the king outside the city walls and he and those with him are ushered into the city.
Paul’s converts in Thessalonike would be likely familiar with his imagery of a royal return since they knew very well of the history of Philip and Alexander, the kings of Macedon.
This text, like all these other texts, must be interpreted in terms of what the first audience was likely to understand them to mean, not in light of later Christian theological schemas of which early Christians were ignorant.
As for the ever popular issue of “rapture,” it needs to be recognized that this theology did not arise before the nineteenth century as part of what is called dispensationalism and was popularized through the Scofield Reference Bible. There is no historical evidence that the early church believed in such a concept. To the contrary, the early church took texts like Mark 13:20 to mean that the church would go through the final tribulation while awaiting the second coming of Jesus.
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