Aravnah Ornan

I Thessalonians 4:15-17 reads:Since it's generally agreed that the world did not end during the life of St. Paul, does any true believer have any credible explanation as to who these "we" are? The Christian commentaries that I've read on the subject have some pretty desperate explanations if they deign to tackle the subject at all. Some Christians have even suggested that G-d (the same G-d Who is not a man, that He should lie, Numbers 23:19) lied to the early church through the inspired authors to keep the early Christians on their toes.

Magus55

We which are alive is is referring to the living believers during the Rapture. I think Paul was speaking in generic terms, not necessarily assuming He would be included in that we. I read it as we the believers in Christ who are still living.

CX

I think if you'll look at dispassionate scholarship on the matter, it is generally concluded that in the early part of his ministry Paul expected the parousia to occur in his lifetime.

Throughout the early Xian literature it's pretty apparent that the 1st generation of Jesus' followers thought he was going to return within a generation.

Amos

"We" are those for whom the world had ended and they were alive in Christ already. They were waiting for the world to end in the lives of those believers who have fallen alseep in their faith and when they rise, and not until they do rise, will those who are alive now rejoyce with them in a cloud of glory.

The "world" here is a metaphor for our 'inolutionary period," if you wish, which is the time that we are alive in our rational world but are death in our spiritual world into which we must be born before it can be ours.

The archangel's voice is the annunciation that precedes our rebirth to distinguish it as "from God" as opposed to "from canal desire" (as was foreshadowed in Jn.1:13) and hence the "trumpet of God" will be heard.

In other words, the end of the world is the flip side of the new reign in Christ and so every Christian will have experienced the end of his world unless he now live is trying to add new wine to an old skin.

Amos

Par-ousia is just the final ousia and occurs only in a person's mind. So who are we to say that many did not experience parousia throughout the ages . . . except maybe outside of Catholicism?

Amos

. . . that which remains is in heaven and not the other way around.

NOGO

[quote]
Magus55
We which are alive is is referring to the living believers during the Rapture. I think Paul was speaking in generic terms, not necessarily assuming He would be included in that we. I read it as we the believers in Christ who are still living.
[quote]

"we who are alive" refers to Paul and the people whom is talking to.

This is not a surprising conclusion since it goes with so many other references in the NT and they all point in one direction. Early Christians expected the end of the world within a generation.

If Paul had any inclination about the possibility that the so called rapture would happen over 2000 years later he would have say

"First we the dead will be raised then they who are alive ..."

If not why not?
Why wouldn't Paul have said it this way if that is what he meant?

Imagine if Paul told his followers that what he was preaching would not occur for a very long time and that none of the people alive then would be alive. Christianity would have died a sudden death.

The question to ask then is this.
What did the believers who addressed by this letter of Paul understood by "we who are alive and ... we will be changed" ???

Answer:
They understood exactly what it says.
According to Magus55 Paul deceived them in thinking that they would witness the even within their lifetime.