In the first half of chapter 4, Paul encourages us to live lives full of righteousness. We have been called to righteousness and not to lust and greed. Paul encourages us to live gentle, self contained lives so that we are able to help others and represent God well.
Paul next transitions to speak about the eternal life we wait for. He says, “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.” 1 Thessalonians 4:13 NRSV. Notice that Paul does not say that we do not grieve, he says we do not grieve as those who have no hope! A Christian will absolutely mourn the death of loved ones, but we morn in faith, knowing that we will see them again!
The controversial doctrine in the church of “rapture is addressed briefly here. “For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel's call and with the sound of God's trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever.” 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 NRSV. What a ride that will be! We who are alive when Christ returns will be caught up in the clouds with the Lord. Let me say here that I do not pretend to know when this will happen, I only believe the Bible says here that it will. I am in sales, not management and I believe that some of these particulars are left in the hands of God alone -- right where it belongs!
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2 comments:
I like the comment too about not being like those who have no hope. I think it's so easy to be without hope in this world, i'm afraid. That's where many people find themselves, and they do indeed live with a grief.
As for comments about the rapture, I guess for me I tend to take the whole lot of them - from the gospels, the letters, Revelation, etc., and put them aside/away. I find the imagery to be - unhelpful, I guess I would say. Written in a time, for example, when people thought heaven was literally someplace you would reach if you could have gone high enough up. I just find that very hard to even relate to as an image. So I try to rest in the hope we have that God is good and seeks good for us. I don't like (at all) not having the answers, but I can't seem to sort the rest out ;)
Elizabeth – agreed on that one, and Bill also. We’re not here to paint the picture and things like that – all we can know is that something big is a comin, and what it is, and how great it is, we certainly can not truly fathom. I certainly like the idea of flying off into the clouds with our Lord, being with our Lord in general would be awesome, but flying away from our world with the God we have always known and loved would be a truly amazing gift.
We do mourn a lot, and we shouldn’t as much as we do. It might be part of the whole instant gratification issue that we have in our society. We want so badly everything RIGHT now, and we certainly don’t want to DIE to find our lost friends right now, we just want them back…but they’re better of than we are, so we need to be glad for them, especially those who end their lives in so much pain…
Well, leaving this with thoughts of Heaven is certainly great.
See you there when the time comes!
Marshall
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