not to be quickly shaken in your mind, nor yet be troubled, either by spirit, or by word, or by letter as from us, saying that the day of Christ had come.
"The supposed doctrinal difficulty lies in the failure to distinguish between parousia [appearing] and the day of the Lord. The advocates of the false teaching at Thessalonica conceived that the day of the Lord was not merely ’at hand,’ which was true (Romans 13:12), but actually ’present,’ which Paul denied. Such a view denied the believer the hope of the imminent rapture." [Note: Hiebert, p. 304. See Renald E. Showers, Maranatha: Our Lord, Come! A Definitive Study of the Rapture of the Church, pp. 223-29, for an extended exegetical discussion of these verses that imply a pretribulation Rapture.] 