What does 1Thes 4:13-18 mean?

When a person dies a Christian, their soul is immediately in the presence of God. What this passage is referring to is the bodies. When Christ comes again we will be raised bodily.

This is one of the key sets of scriptures that describes the rapture of the church (the collective body of believers).

For anyone who says that the rapture is a new idea thought up by men in the last 100 years, that's not at all true. For those that say the word rapture doesn't appear anywhere in the Bible that is only correct when reading the English translation.

The Latin Vulgate produced by Jerome in the early 400's was the main Bible of the medieval Western Church until the Reformation. The Protestants introduced the word "rapture" into the English language from the Latin raeptius. It was Jerome's Vulgate that translated the original Greek verb harpaz used by Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, in 1 Thessalonians 4:17, which is usually translated into English with the phrase "caught up." The leading Greek Lexicon says that harpaz means "snatch, seize, i.e., take suddenly and vehemently."

Paul is giving them a word of confort that they know their loved ones dead in Christ will be seen by them once again when Christ catch his church (Verses 13, 14). The verse 15 starts to tell how the rapture will be. The alive ones won't be caught up before the deads in Christ (verse 15). Jesus will appear (to us, saved) with Michael, the archangel. Michael will sound the trumpet (the trumpet of God). The dead ones will hear this and will be raised (verse 16). Then the alive in Christ will be cauth up TOGETHER all the deads (now alive) in Christ. We'll meet the Lord in the clouds. It's called "the rapture". See also 1ºCor 15:51-52. The rapture will be invisible to the world because of its speedy. It will "in a twinckless of an eye" (1ºCor 15:51).

When Paul wrote this epistle it was at a time when the people still expected the immanent return of Jesus. Problem was that some of the believers were starting to die off and Jesus hadn't returned, so Paul writes an encouragement to the effect that when Christ comes no one will be able to miss it.

You could see it as being a way of side stepping the issue, but I think it's more genuine than that. Of course many people have since made a big thing of the rapture, but that's another question...

I am not surprised that you are getting so many different answers and ways to prove points. What we overlook in the joy of communications with God is that the Word is inspired, not actually written by God. These words of (the Word) have been handed down from generation to generation, interpreted by language after language, and printed in one form after another. Our communication with God is on a one to One basis, our relationship with God is also based on a one to One (caps intended) and each of us are allowed to seek salvation in our own way as long as we follow God's rule, not man's. When you meet a man, preacher, teacher, rabbi, or other devout and totally sincere person that claims that he knows the way and the only way to heaven or how to interpret the Holy Book, then turn from that man and run as fast as you can back to God. God allows us to be human, created us in such a way that there will never be another person like us and we will be judged fairly on our own merits based on the gifts that God gave each of us. Man cannot do that, seek your answers from within your true heart, talk to God, get His advice, and always remember, not even the ten people sitting on the same pew of the same religious service, listening to the same religious leader will come away with the same message. If you don't believe me, just listen to the members of your associated religious group.

Keep in mind, no human on earth knows enough to describe God completely in a way that another man can understand. We can try, we can follow those who offer us the best examples and give us the closest comfort to our own needs in our individual search for personal salvation.

Good luck and may God bless each of us as we do our best to please Him.

That is one of the clearest writings in the Bible on the Rapture of the church. Accept it for what it says, and don't confuse it with the second coming of Christ as you read in matt 24. There are two totally different events.