Danny’s Thoughts, Reviews, and Musings

Danny Price 9/17/26 Danny Price 9/17/26

Week #3 - Not Appointed to Wrath

Blog Series Intention Recap

The Blessed Hope: The Church Awaits Christ, Not Judgment

The future can feel uncertain. Wars, political upheaval, cultural change, and personal loss can make us wonder what comes next. But Scripture does not tell the Church to fear the future. It tells us to expect the Messiah. Paul calls His return our "blessed hope" (Titus 2:13).

The Blessed Hope is a four-week Theology Thursday series exploring the Messiah's return for His Church. We'll look at what Christians are waiting for, what happens when believers are "caught up" to meet the Lord, why I believe Scripture teaches that the Church will be removed before the Tribulation, and how that hope should shape our lives today.

This isn't about setting dates, decoding headlines, or forcing current events onto a prophecy chart.

We are waiting for Yeshua (Jesus).

The Blessed Hope isn't simply about knowing what happens next. It's about knowing Who is coming.

This page is a post in the series “The Blessed Hope: The Church Awaits Christ, Not Judgment.” Click here to see the rest of the posts.

Let’s jump into Week #3:

"Not Appointed to Wrath"...

Week 2 answered one question: what happens when Christ comes for His Church? He gathers His people. The dead in Messiah rise first, and those still living are caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air.

That answer raises another question immediately. When does this happen? Before, during, or after the period of judgment Scripture calls the Tribulation?

This is the most debated post in the series, and I want to be plain about what I'm not trying to do. I'm not trying to hand you a chart and tell you it's the only one a faithful Christian could draw. I'm telling you why I believe Scripture teaches that the Church will be removed before that coming judgment, not to win an argument, but because I think it's what these texts actually say, and because I think it matters for how we wait.

It also helps to say clearly what the claim is not. It is not that Christians are exempt from suffering, from persecution, or from the Lord's own discipline of His children. Believers have always suffered, sometimes terribly, and Scripture never promises otherwise. The claim is narrower and more specific: the Church is not destined for a particular, future, worldwide judgment the Bible calls the Day of the Lord. That distinction is the difference this whole post is trying to explain.

Why it Matters:

The Church's future isn't wrath. It's rescue.
"Sudden destruction" and "they will not escape" describe the experience of those facing the Day of the Lord; Paul immediately contrasts them with believers, who are children of light.
The recurring emphasis of the New Testament is that believers wait expectantly for Yeshua Himself.
Whatever you conclude about timing, "God has not destined us for wrath" is a promise built on faith in Messiah, not on getting the chart right.

Go Deeper:

Paul gives us an important piece of that case in 1 Thessalonians 5:

"Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, 'There is peace and security,' then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness... For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing." (1 Thessalonians 5:1–6, 9–11, ESV)

A Thief in the Night, But Not for You

Paul opens by telling the Thessalonians something they already knew: "the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night" (1 Thessalonians 5:2, ESV). Here Paul emphasizes the judgment side of the biblical Day of the Lord: sudden destruction coming on an unprepared world, catching people mid-sentence as they say, "there is peace and security" (5:3).

Then comes the turn that carries the passage: "But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief" (5:4). The world and the Church are deliberately placed on opposite sides of Paul's contrast: "they" face sudden destruction; "you" are children of light. That distinction alone doesn't prove the Church's removal. A believer could read this and still conclude they're present for that day, just spiritually prepared for it rather than caught off guard. But it prepares for Paul's stronger statement a few verses later: "God has not destined us for wrath."

Not Destined for Wrath

Here's the verse the whole argument turns on: "For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thessalonians 5:9, ESV). Paul isn't speculating. He's stating a settled fact about believers' destiny, the same way he stated a settled fact about the resurrection in last week's passage.

This isn't the only place he says it. Earlier in this same letter, he describes the Thessalonians' conversion as turning "to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come" (1 Thessalonians 1:10, ESV). The Son and deliverance from wrath aren't presented as two separate hopes. Read together, these two verses describe the same future from two angles.

So which wrath is this? Not the ordinary hardships of life in a fallen world, and not the Lord's discipline of His own children, which Hebrews 12 describes as something a good Father does out of love. This is the specific, climactic, worldwide judgment Paul has just described: the Day of the Lord, the "sudden destruction" that overtakes an unprepared world like labor pains. Taken in context, I believe this is the wrath believers are told they are not destined for.

Kept From the Hour

Jesus makes a similar promise to one of the seven churches in Revelation: "Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth" (Revelation 3:10, ESV).

Pre-tribulational interpreters see something important in the wording: Yeshua doesn't merely promise faithfulness within the trial but says, "I will keep you from the hour of trial." The promise concerns the hour itself, a worldwide period directed toward "those who dwell on the earth," a phrase that shows up repeatedly later in Revelation as a description of the very people the Tribulation judgments fall on. I think the most natural reading is exemption from that coming period, rather than preservation through it. That's not the only way this verse has been read, but it's the reading I find most faithful to what Jesus actually promises here.

Two Very Different Pictures

Put the two passages side by side, and the differences are striking. Week 2 looked closely at 1 Thessalonians 4: Christ descends, believers are gathered up to meet Him in the air, and "we will always be with the Lord" (4:17, ESV). Set that picture next to another one, in Revelation 19:

"Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war... From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty." (Revelation 19:11, 15, ESV)

In 1 Thessalonians 4, believers are gathered to meet the Lord in the air. In Revelation 19, Messiah descends in judgment against the nations gathered in rebellion. Both are real. Both are certain. But a Bible reader has to explain why the New Testament describes Christ's coming in two such different keys: comfort in one place, conquest in another. The pre-tribulational reading understands these as distinct moments in the larger story of Messiah's return: first coming for His Church, later coming with His saints in judgment.

How does this help me understand the concept of “At The Table?”

Watching for a Person, Not a Prerequisite

Here's a simple test. Read back through what the New Testament tells believers to watch for. "Waiting for his Son from heaven" (1 Thessalonians 1:10). "Waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ" (Titus 2:13, the verse this whole series is built on). The recurring emphasis is striking: believers are never told to watch for the Antichrist's identity, the rebuilding of a temple, or any other Tribulation milestone as something that has to happen before their hope arrives.

That's strange to leave out if the Church actually had to live through the Tribulation before Christ's appearing. You'd expect the New Testament to tell believers what to watch for on the ground. Instead, it tells them who to watch for in the sky. That's not proof by itself. But stacked next to a promised deliverance from wrath and a promised keeping from the hour of trial, it points in the same direction each time.

Why This Is Bigger Than a Chart

This series opened with a warning I meant as much for myself as for you: don't let September become four posts defending a timeline. Even here, in the most technical post of the month, that's still not the point. If you land somewhere different than I do on exactly when the Rapture happens relative to the Tribulation, this post hasn't failed. The Blessed Hope was never a chart to get right. It's a Person to wait for.

And beneath the timing question is a promise we shouldn't miss: God's final purpose for His people is not wrath, but salvation through Yeshua the Messiah. We haven't earned that rescue. Our hope rests entirely in the One who died for us and rose again, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we might live with Him.

Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.

Danny Price 9/10/26 Danny Price 9/10/26

Week #2 - Caught Up

Blog Series Intention Recap

The Blessed Hope: The Church Awaits Christ, Not Judgment

This isn't about setting dates, decoding headlines, or forcing current events onto a prophecy chart.

We are waiting for Yeshua (Jesus).

The Blessed Hope isn't simply about knowing what happens next. It's about knowing Who is coming.

This page is a post in the series “The Blessed Hope: The Church Awaits Christ, Not Judgment.” Click here to see the rest of the posts.

Let’s jump into Week #2:

"Caught Up"...

Have you ever sat with someone grieving and not known what to say?

The believers in Thessalonica were grieving. Paul had planted this church on a whirlwind visit, only weeks long, before persecution forced him out of the city in the middle of the night (Acts 17:1–10). He never got the long, settled ministry among them that he wanted. He tells them later that being separated from them felt like being "torn away" (1 Thessalonians 2:17, ESV), and that he tried more than once to come back and couldn't.

So when some of their own people died, this young church didn't have years of teaching to stand on. They only had what Paul had managed to tell them in a few short weeks, and it apparently wasn't enough to answer the question now in front of them: if Yeshua was coming back for His Church, what would happen to the believers who died before He came? Would they somehow be at a disadvantage?

Paul writes to comfort them. And what he says becomes one of the most familiar, and most debated, passages in the New Testament, the passage that describes what we now call the Rapture.

"But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words." (1 Thessalonians 4:13–18, ESV)

This is the event side of the hope Week 1 named. The Blessed Hope is Yeshua, and this is what it looks like when He comes for His Church.

Why it Matters:

Paul wrote this to comfort grieving believers, not to hand them a prophecy chart.
The word "Rapture" isn't found in most English Bibles, but the biblical language behind it is: believers will be "caught up" to meet the Lord.
Believers who have died in Messiah are not left behind. They rise before the living believers are caught up.
The promise doesn't end with an event. It ends with a permanent future: "so we will always be with the Lord."

Go Deeper:

Why Paul Wrote This

Paul opens with the reason for the whole passage: "we do not want you to be uninformed... that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope" (1 Thessalonians 4:13, ESV). This wasn't a theology lecture Paul decided the Thessalonians needed. It was pastoral care. People they loved had died, and the church didn't know what that meant for the hope they'd been taught to expect.

Notice, too, the word Paul chooses for death: "asleep." He uses it twice in this short passage, and it isn't a euphemism to soften the blow. It's a picture. Paul's picture of sleep doesn't mean the believer's soul becomes unconscious at death. His point is about the temporary nature of bodily death. Sleep ends. So will the grave. Paul isn't minimizing what the Thessalonians lost. He's telling them what kind of loss it actually is.

That context matters for how we read everything that follows. Paul isn't building a timeline for its own sake. He's answering a specific fear with a specific promise.

Because He Rose, They Will Too

Before Paul says anything about being caught up, he lays the foundation the entire promise stands on: "since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep" (1 Thessalonians 4:14, ESV).

This is the hinge of the whole passage, and it's easy to read past it on the way to the more dramatic verses that follow. Paul doesn't start with angels, trumpets, or clouds. He starts with an already-settled fact: Jesus died and rose again. Everything else in this passage is an extension of that one event. The resurrection of Yeshua is the foundation of their hope: death did not hold Him, and it will not have the final word over those who belong to Him.

That's the same grace this whole series keeps returning to. Grace appeared in the person and work of Yeshua the Messiah. Now that same grace guarantees a resurrection for everyone who belongs to Him.

Is the Rapture Even in the Bible?

It's a fair question, and a common one. The English word "Rapture" doesn't appear in most Bible translations. But the concept it names appears in verse 17: believers "caught up together... to meet the Lord in the air." The Greek verb is harpazō, meaning to snatch up or seize suddenly. When the New Testament was translated into Latin, that word became rapiemur, from rapio, and English eventually borrowed "Rapture" from there.

So the word came from translation history. The event Paul describes also echoes Yeshua's promise to His disciples on the night before His death: "I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also" (John 14:3, ESV). Whatever distinctions we need to make between these passages, they share the same personal center: Yeshua comes for His people so that they may be with Him.

The Dead in Messiah Rise First

Here's the answer to the Thessalonians' actual fear: "the dead in Christ will rise first" (1 Thessalonians 4:16, ESV). Believers who died before Christ's return are not disadvantaged. They are not forgotten and they have not missed anything. They are the first to be raised, not the last to be remembered.

Paul fills out the picture further in 1 Corinthians 15: "we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet" (1 Corinthians 15:51–52, ESV). Where Thessalonians emphasizes resurrection and reunion, Corinthians emphasizes transformation, bodies made imperishable and fit for what's coming. Together they make the same basic point: whether a believer has already died or is still alive when Christ returns changes nothing about whether they share in the hope.

It's worth pausing on what kind of promise this is. Paul isn't comforting the Thessalonians with the idea that their loved ones' souls are safe somewhere, though that's also true (2 Corinthians 5:8). He's promising something more specific: bodies raised. The Christian hope has never been an escape from physical existence into some disembodied spiritual state. Our hope is bodily resurrection, grounded in the resurrection of Yeshua Himself. Whatever death took, God intends to give back, and more besides.

Caught Up Together

Then comes the moment the whole passage has been building toward: "For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God... we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord" (1 Thessalonians 4:16–17, ESV).

Paul describes the moment with unmistakable drama: a cry of command, the voice of an archangel, the trumpet of God. Heaven acts decisively, the dead are raised, and the living are caught up.

Notice, too, the word "together." This isn't a private event happening to scattered believers one at a time. It's a reunion. The living and the dead in Messiah are gathered to meet the same Lord.

And notice where the sentence actually ends. It doesn't end at "meet the Lord in the air." It ends at "we will always be with the Lord." The event isn't the point. The permanence is. Paul isn't describing an escape from the world. He's describing an unbroken future with Christ that death itself cannot interrupt.

How does this help me understand the concept of “At The Table”?

Not a Prophecy Chart, But a Comfort

It would be easy to turn this passage into a diagram: descent, cry of command, trumpet, resurrection, catching up, meeting in the air. Each detail is there, and each one matters, and this series will return to some of them, especially the question of timing, in Week 3. But Paul doesn't stop after describing the event. He tells us what to do with it.

"Therefore encourage one another with these words" (1 Thessalonians 4:18, ESV).

Not "debate these words." Encourage one another with them. Whatever else this passage teaches, Paul wrote it to be used at a graveside, not just studied at a whiteboard.

Why This Changes the Way We Grieve

Paul never tells the Thessalonians not to grieve. He tells them not to grieve "as others do who have no hope" (1 Thessalonians 4:13, ESV). Grief and hope are not opposites here. Christians still experience the death of people we love. We still cry at funerals, sit up at night missing someone, feel the empty chair at the table. What's different is not whether we grieve. It's what the grief is standing on.

Grief without hope has nowhere to go. It can only look backward, at what's gone. Grief with hope can look backward and forward at the same time. It can hold both truths honestly: this loss is real, and this loss is not final. That's not a trick for feeling better faster. It's simply true, if what Paul says here is true.

This is also why this passage was never meant to live only in a study Bible. It belongs at gravesides, in hospital waiting rooms, in the quiet weeks after a funeral when the casseroles stop coming and the missing hasn't. "Therefore encourage one another with these words" isn't a suggestion for how to end a sermon. It's an instruction for how believers are supposed to care for each other when someone they love has fallen asleep in Messiah.

That's the same hope Week 1 already named. Grace has appeared. Glory will appear. And in between, death does not get the last word for those who are in Messiah.

Maybe you know someone who is grieving right now. Don't rush to explain every detail of what comes next. Remind them Who is coming. Remind them that those who died in Messiah are not forgotten. Remind them that death does not get the last word.

And if you're the one grieving, let Paul's words do what he intended. Grieve honestly. But don't grieve without hope.

Therefore encourage one another with these words.

Danny Price 9/3/26 Danny Price 9/3/26

Week #1 - What Are We Waiting For?

Blog Series Intention Recap

The Blessed Hope: The Church Awaits Christ, Not Judgment

This isn't about setting dates, decoding headlines, or forcing current events onto a prophecy chart.

We are waiting for Yeshua (Jesus).

The Blessed Hope isn't simply about knowing what happens next. It's about knowing Who is coming.

This page is a post in the series “The Blessed Hope: The Church Awaits Christ, Not Judgment.” Click here to see the rest of the posts.

Let’s jump into Week #1:

"What Are We Waiting For?"...

What are you waiting for right now?

The test results. The phone call. The job offer. The kids to finally come home for the holidays.

Everybody is waiting for something. And what we're waiting for shapes how we live while we wait. Anxious waiting looks different from hopeful waiting, even when the waiting itself takes the same number of days.

Paul says Christians are waiting too.

But notice what Titus 2 does not say we're waiting for. Our attention is not primarily fixed on the Antichrist, the arrival of the Tribulation, or civilization finally collapsing under its own weight, though a glance at any given week's headlines might make that feel like the safer bet.

We are waiting for Yeshua.

Why it Matters:

Biblical hope gives us confidence when the future feels uncertain.
Waiting for Yeshua doesn't pull us out of the present. It changes how we live in it.
Prophecy ultimately points us toward a Person, not merely a timeline.
The certainty of His return gives us reason to live faithfully right now.

Go Deeper:

Titus 2:11–14 says this beautifully, and it gives this entire series its anchor:

"For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works." (Titus 2:11–14, ESV)

Read those words slowly, and you'll notice that Paul moves in three directions:

Grace appeared.
Grace trains us.
Glory will appear.

Past. Present. Future.

And right in the middle of that movement is where Christians live today.

What Does Paul Mean by "the Blessed Hope"?

In everyday English, hope can sound like a wish.

"I hope it doesn't rain."

"I hope the test comes back clear."

"I hope everything works out."

That's not the sense Paul gives us here. In this passage, hope isn't a nervous "maybe." It is confident expectation grounded in God's promise. The question isn't whether Yeshua will return. We wait with confidence because we know that He will.

That's important for everything that follows in this series. We'll talk about a real, specific, future event. But before we talk about timelines, Tribulation, or the Rapture, Titus reminds us where our confidence belongs.

Not in our ability to decode the future.

In the One who promised to return.

Grace That Appeared

Paul begins in the past: "For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people..." (Titus 2:11, ESV)

Something happened.

Grace didn't remain an abstract idea. It entered history in the person and work of Yeshua the Messiah.

And notice the order. Before Paul tells Christians how to live, he tells them what God has already done.

Grace came first.

That's Christianity. We don't live faithfully so that God might finally show us grace. God's grace has appeared, and that grace changes the way we live.

Grace That Trains Us

This may be the easiest part of the passage to rush past.

We're talking about Christ's return, after all. Let's get to the exciting part.

But Paul doesn't.

Grace is "training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age" (Titus 2:12, ESV).

Grace doesn't only save us.

Grace trains us.

Waiting for Yeshua doesn't mean staring at the sky while ignoring the work God has put before us.

The same grace that tells us He is coming also teaches us how to live until He does.

Glory That Will Appear

Then Paul finally turns our eyes toward the future:

"waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ..." (Titus 2:13, ESV)

Waiting isn't presented as an occasional activity. It's a posture. Christians live looking forward.

And there is something else in this verse that we shouldn't miss. The grammar points to "our great God and Savior Jesus Christ" as one person. The One we're waiting for is not simply a teacher, prophet, or religious leader.

He is our great God and Savior.

That makes the Blessed Hope intensely personal. We're not waiting for an event to happen. We're waiting for Someone to come.

Paul even ties the Messiah's two appearances together. Grace has appeared. Now we wait for the appearing of glory.

He came in grace.

He will appear in glory.

And we live between those two appearances. That is where a study of the Blessed Hope needs to begin, not with a prophecy chart, but with a Person.

Not a Prophecy Chart, But a Person

It would be easy to begin a series like this with timelines and charts. Seven years here. The Rapture there. The Antichrist somewhere in between.

Those questions matter. We're going to deal with them.

But Titus 2 doesn't begin there, so neither will we. Paul begins with grace, moves through present obedience, and then points toward glory.

That's the order I don't want us to miss.

The Blessed Hope isn't merely a doctrine to understand. It is a Person we are waiting for.

The Blessed Hope is Yeshua.

How does this help me understand the concept of “At The Table”?

Why This Changes the Way We Wait

If the Blessed Hope is a Person and not merely a scenario, then the waiting itself changes.

We don't have to spend our lives trying to make every headline fit somewhere on a prophecy chart. We don't have to wait for the world to get bad enough before we start looking up.

We live faithfully now because we know Who is coming.

Grace has appeared.

Grace is training us right now.

Glory is coming.

The Blessed Hope isn't that we have figured out the future.

The Blessed Hope is Yeshua.

So don't just ask what you believe about the Messiah's return. Ask what that belief is doing in you.

What is shaping the way you live while you wait: fear about what might happen next, or confidence in the One who promised He is coming?

Danny Price 9/1/26 Danny Price 9/1/26

The Blessed Hope: The Church Awaits Christ, Not Judgment

Blog Series Intention Recap

Paul calls His return our “blessed hope” (Titus 2:13).

The Blessed Hope is a four-week Theology Thursday series exploring Christ’s return for His Church. We’ll look at what Christians are waiting for, what happens when believers are “caught up” to meet the Lord, why I believe Scripture teaches that the Church will be removed before the Tribulation, and how that hope should shape our lives today.

This isn't about setting dates, decoding headlines, or forcing current events onto a prophecy chart.

We are waiting for Jesus.

That expectation gives us comfort when we grieve, courage when the world feels unstable, urgency to share the gospel, and motivation to live faithfully.

The Blessed Hope isn't simply about knowing what happens next.

It's about knowing Who is coming.

This post is the main page of the series “The Blessed Hope: The Church Awaits Christ, Not Judgment.”