Epistle Online,
I checked out your website on the rapture, and I would like to say that I'm post trib. simply because that is what the bible plainly teaches. First of all, the Greek word for "coming" as in reference to the coming of the Lord is "parousia" which means "arrival and presence", the Lord arrives to establish his kingdom and of course he is present. Some people say that the "rapture" happens 7 years before the parousia, but they contradict themselves because some of the verses that they use to try to prove their point has the Greek word "parousia" {arrival and presence}. Here are all the verses in which "parousia" is translated "coming".
Matt.24:3 - ".......Tell us when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming...."
Matt.24:27- "For as the lightning cometh out of the east,and shineth even unto the west;so shall the coming of the Son of man be."
Matt.24:37- "But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be."
1Cor.15:23- "But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming."
1Thess.3:13- ".........at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints."
1 Thess.4:15- "......that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep."
2Thess.2:1- "Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him."
2Thess.2:8- ".......whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming."
Now, those verses cannot be refering to a pre-trib rapture, because everyone of those verses is "parousia" translated "coming", and there are no two parousias, the Lord only arrives once to establish his kingdom. The english word "rapture" is not in the bible, the Greek word is "harpazo" which means to be "caught up", and it is used only once, it is used in 1 Thess.4:17, but that happens at the "last trump" according to 1Cor.15:52, and since last means last and God is not the Author of confusion, that "last trump" would be that last trumpet in the book of Revelation {7th trumpet}. 1 Cor. 15 talks about the resurrection of the believers {1st resurrection}, and the first resurrection is even mentioned in Rev. chapter 20 verses 5 and 6 after it talks about the binding of Satan in the bottomless pit for a thousand years in verses 1-3. The 1st resurrection happens at this so called rapture, and if this resurrection and rapture happened before the tribulation period, then there would be no tribulation, because Satan gets bound in the pit and wouldn't be able to empower the man of sin {Anti-christ} with power to rule the earth.
I don't want to make this post too long, so I will continue on next post.