For Further Study
Books - The Rapture Trap by Paul Thigpen and Will Catholics Be Left Behind? by Carl Olson
CD - The Rapture Files by Tim Staples
For Further Study
Books - The Rapture Trap by Paul Thigpen and Will Catholics Be Left Behind? by Carl Olson
CD - The Rapture Files by Tim Staples
Catholic Ping!
The Rapture was a very late development. As this article says, no one had even thought of such an idea until late in the nineteenth century. None of the Protestant denominations had made such an argument. Not even the crazy sects that arose in England during the Interregnum came up with it.
I’ve read various accounts of the idea, and frankly I find it impossible to see how they get any such idea from close reading of the Bible. It just isn’t there.
Very odd, the way it has spread.
Two separate comings:
First coming: Thess. 4:13-18 -
Christ meets the church in the air.
Second coming: Zechariah 14:4 -
No meeting in the air, Jesus returns to earth on the Mount of Olives.
Second coming: Revelation 1:7 -
“every eye shall see him”
Unlike the rapture, Jesus will be seen by all.
There are so many words in the Bible that made it hard to read and understand.
Many words are rooted in Greek and Hebrew and have very different meanings than what one would imagine in these days.
Being raised a Catholic, I never received chapter and verse instruction concerning the Scriptures. We heard sermons, yes; the priest’s message for that Sunday. But, never actual study chapter and verse of the Scriptures, with an understanding of the Greek and Hebrew roots of the words.
I have a dear friend (non-Catholic, but very religious) that once commented how surprised she was that Catholics were “separated” from so much by their priests; that the priests “held” such an authoritative position over the parishioners; almost arrogantly so—as if we were not able to understand God without the help of the priest.
I thank God my mother raised me with religious beliefs, but I wonder what we, as Catholics, have missed by not studying the Scriptures chapter and verse with knowledge of the root language used in the Bible.
Is the rapture belief unfounded when the root of the words are misunderstood?
The “rapture” was a Protestant invention. There is no agreement on where it states it in Scripture because the Catholic Church interpretation of the end of the world (as it says in John) is the correct one...all other interpretations are Protestant, that is, as one chooses/likes.
Wrong !... Emmanuel Lacunza, a Jesuit Catholic priest, who in the 1812 book The Coming of Messiah in Glory and Majesty, first taught this theory.
So, the earth is empty? What happens then?
Don't tell me . . . it gets "burned up" and replaced by a superior "spiritual" world of disembodied spirits in which matter no longer exists . . . right?
- The Shepherd Of Hermas (95 - 150 AD)
Deception is the ‘tribulation’, Matthew 24:3-6 Mark 13:3-— and Luke 21:7-—— recorded three times for emphasis. Christ NEVER uttered one word about a secret escape for the ‘church’, because He fully expects some to be delivered up to fulfill the prophecy of Joel the Prophet that Peter explains in Acts 2:16. Paul was only explaining where the ‘dead’ in the flesh are not an instruction about those getting left behind.
Christ's commanded Christians in Mark 13:35 “Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at the even, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning:
36 Lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping.
37 And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch.”
Nothing there about a quick time ticket out of here, because this earth belongs to the Heavenly Father and as it is Written He intends at His appointed time to clean house.
Actually looks like ‘373AD’ the Rapture was preached as follows..you might find this an interesting read:
In Grant Jeffrey’s book.. “Triumphant Return”,.. he writes that about.. 373 AD ...Ephraem taught in a sermon that there was a pre-tribulation rapture.
This writing can be found in Ephraem’s sermon... “On the Last Times, the Antichrist, and the End of the World.”,... Ephraem said in this sermon, ...”For the saints and Elect of God are gathered, prior to the tribulation that is to come, and are taken to the Lord lest they see the confusion that is to overwhelm the world because of our sins”.
Ephraem also taught in this same sermon that the war of Gog and Magog in Ezekiel 38-39 would precede the tribulation and he taught the imminent return of Jesus.
I don,t see any rapture, paul says in 1 cor 15:51 and 52
Many people has deliberately twisted these scriptures around because they know that most people do not take the time to understand the meanings and it is easy to see that most people would like to get out of dieing if possible.
And would,nt it be great to be so worthy to be in the first resurrection?
Well we are about two thousand years late to be in the first resurrection, jesus lead the first resurrection the 144000 went with him and it plainly says so in rev.
And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father’s name written in their foreheads.
14:2
And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps:
14:3
And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth.
14:4
These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb.
14:5
And in their mouth was found no guile: for they are without fault before the throne of God.”
It does not say they will be redeemed , it says they were ( past tense ) redeemed.