What is Jesus' promise to Peter? Are you speaking of Simon BarJonah? Would you please explain this to me?
Also "falling away" (aphistaymee) In Luke 8:13 bears no relationship to "caught up" (AV) or "taken up" (DRB) (harpadzoh) in six different senses:
(1) They are two different words, verbs that are not related. To fall down is not the same as to be taken up.
(2) The are different in time frame. falling away was/is in the present tense and is continually in progress, caught/taken up will happen sometime yet in the future.
(3) The action is different. The falling away is a slower course, and being of the middle deponent, it means that the person falling away is deliberately withdrawing oneself and actively causing it. In the upper-taking, the catching up, it is a plucking up or away by an agency external to the person who is passively receiving, not actively causing the catching away process.
(4) In the falling away, seekers have been walking away and withdrawing from The Faith over a period of almost two thousand years, to form a cumulative group. In the catching up, the process will happen in one fleeting moment, in the blink of an eye.
(5) The falling away is by individual personal decision by his/her own will. In the taking away, the process will be instituted by the decision of an authority above and apart from any of the ones are being acted upon, the time of occurence not by their own choice.
(6) The terminal location of the one fallen away (apostate) is Hell and the Lake of Fire with eternal agony. The final residence of those caught up/taken away (firmly committed believers) will be in The God's Heaven, to enjoy absolute abumdant etermal Life in His Presence.
Got it ? Capisce?
>>> What is Jesus’ promise to Peter?
Mat 16:18 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
Clearly, in contrast to my previous statements, “falling away” IS a reference to apostacy... but apostacy by who?
Apostasia also means rebellion, and may be referring to the ungodly... not necessarily the Christians.
The NLT translates this way:
“Don’t be fooled by what they say. For that day will not come until there is a great rebellion against God and the man of lawlessness* is revealed”
THIS I can fit with the context of scripture, and I do not find it in conflict with Matt 16:18.
It also means that 2Thes 2:3 is NOT a reference to the rapture. I can concede this point if you can concede that the apostacy is not necessarily a reference to born again christians.