The Rapture: Matthew 24:

As has been stated in the previous post, the Rapture is theological concept which rest on shaky Biblical interpretation. I provided a short exegesis of 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 to deal with meeting Jesus in the air, but that is not the only passage that people read rapture into. Another passage that people think gives credit to the rapture is Matthew 24:36-44. This passage says,
36 “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son,[h] but only the Father. 37 For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, 39 and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. 40 Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. 41 Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. 42 Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day[i] your Lord is coming. 43 But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.


When people read this passage they read "Two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left" and then they think, this is evidence that God is going to take away his people! Or perhaps they hear Larry Norman singing, "I wish we'd all been ready." Afterall, "The Son has come and you've been left behind." This song often provides the interpretive lens through which people read this passage (as well as it's companion passage in Luke 17).

The problem with this approach, however, is that the passage does not say that the ones "left" are "left behind." It just says that they are "left." People assume that the ones "left" are the evil ones and the ones "taken" have been taken to heaven to be will Jesus. But that isn't in the text. This causes me to question, do we want to be taken or do we want to be left?

In order to help us answer that question, Jesus has said that the coming of the Son of Man will be like the days of Noah. Turning to Genesis 7:23 we read, "[God] blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, human beings and animals and creeping things and birds of the air; they were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those that were with him in the ark." According to this passage, being left was a good thing! Noah and the others on the Ark were the ones left on the earth! This should tell us that we do not want to be taken, we want to be left.

I believe that people have heard the idea of the rapture, they have read Left Behind, seen A Thief in the Night, heard Larry Norman, and having never actually studied the passages assume that those popular media provide the lens through which the passages should be read. If we read closely, however, we see the exact opposite is true.

If we look at a historical context of when this was written, being taken was not a good thing. Being taken indicates being kidnapped during a war. The mind set of the Ancient Near East was such that people did not want to be taken. That is akin to being swept away by the flood waters.

Essentially this passage is not hard proof of rapture. In fact if read in conjunction with Genesis 7, then the rapture has it completely backwards.