Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Rapture" in Simple English language version.
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When Paul speaks of 'meeting' the Lord 'in the air,' the point is precisely not—as in the popular rapture theology—that the saved believers would then stay up in the air somewhere, The point is that, having gone out to meet their returning Lord, they will escort him royally into his domain, that is, back to the place they have come from. Even when we realize that this is highly charged metaphor, not literal description, the meaning is the same as in the parallel in Philippians 3:20. Being citizens of heaven, as the Philippians would know, doesn't mean that one is expecting go back to the mother city but rather means that one is expecting the emperor to come from the mother city to give the colony its full dignity, to rescue it if need he, to subdue local enemies and put everything to rights.
Like the early Methodists, the Free Methodist Church is non-dispensational. We reject the new theology born in the late 1800s that society can only get worse, and that Jesus must return to "rapture" His people from earth to heaven. Instead, Free Methodists pray and believe that by His Spirit, God's will shall indeed "be done on earth as it is in heaven" (Matthew 6:10 NRSV).
