Live honestly: (4:11-12):
Paul recommended minding one’s own business. Working with one’s own hands demonstrates love for the brethren because a self-supporting person is not a burden to others. Paul himself set the example by working with his hands when he was in Thessalonica (1 Thes.2:9). Too restful a life can be a problem also, and Paul guarded against that with this instruction. This verse dignifies manual labour. The reference also suggests that many, perhaps most of the church members came out of the working class.
Rapture: a Christian Hope (4:13-18):
Those who fall asleep are Christians who die. The figure of sleep for death is common in the New Testament. This is not sleep of the soul, however, because a Christian who is absent from his body is present with the Lord (2 Cor.5:8). It is rather the “sleep” of the body in the earth until it is resurrected, changed into a glorious body, and reunited with the soul (1 Cor.15:35-57; 2 Cor. 5:1-9).
Paul wanted the Thessalonians to be neither ignorant nor grieving like the rest of men, who are unbelievers, over the death of fellow believers. Christians do grieve over the loss of loved ones; this is a normal human experience which even Jesus shared (Jn. 11:35). But the grief of Christians differs from that of unbelievers, because we have hope of resurrection with glorified bodies with Christ (1 Thess. 4:16). Just as Jesus died and was resurrected by the Father, so God will unite the resurrected dead in Christ with their Saviour at His coming.
Paul said, that the souls of believers who have died will return with Christ when He comes for His living saints. The prophecy of the Rapture is as sure to be fulfilled as the prophecies of Christ’s death and resurrection.
Imminent means that it can happen at any moment. As believers, we do not look for signs, nor for any special events before the Lord can return. These great events will take place “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye” (1 Cor.15:52).
Jesus Christ will return in the air, and this is where we shall meet Him (1 Thes. 4:17). Suddenly, millions of people will vanish! After the bodies of dead Christians have been raised, those who are still alive and have been left behind momentarily will be caught up with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
Ex: One summer a church camp staff staged an elaborate mock “rapture” while the camp director was off the ground. When he returned, everybody was missing, clothing was on the ground as though people had “passed through” it, a motorboat was circling on the lake without pilot or passengers, and everything in the kitchen was functioning without a cook. A carefully timed phone call from town (“Hey, what’s happening? Everybody’s missing over here!”) only added to the effect. “I’ve got to admit,” said the director, “it really shook me for a minute.” Just think of what effect this event will have on a lost world!
Whether we Christians live or die, we have nothing to fear because Jesus will come either with us or for us! The fact of His return is a comfort to our hearts.
The Latin the word for “caught up” is “rapturo,” from which comes the word “Rapture.” This is the Rapture of the church, when Christians are caught up to meet Christ in the clouds just like Jesus was taken in clouds (Acts 1:9). The events described differ considerably from those that will accompany Christ’s return to the earth to set up His earthly kingdom (Rev. 19:11-21). This difference substantiates the distinction between the Rapture and the Second Coming.
Ex: Robert Murray Mc Cheyne, the godly Presbyterian preacher, used to ask people: “Do you think Jesus Christ will return today?” Most of them would reply, “No, not today.” Then Mc Cheyne would say, “Then, my friend, you better be ready, for He is coming at such an hour as ye think not” (Luke 12:40).