Good question. Yes "rapture" = verb.
But Paul refers to this
concept something like 8 or 9 times in his two "Thessalonians" epistles (not merely the ONE "well-known" verse you are referring to here, in 1Th4:17), by his using a VARIETY of words and phrases (
sometimes as verbs; other times as nouns--not all are DEFINED specifically as "SNATCH / caught-up" as this G726 word is, used in 1Th4:17, but are still words / phrases
referring to it):
--"
OUR episynagoges [NOUN] UNTO HIM" 2Th2:1 (Paul is BRINGING the Subject of "our Rapture/SNATCH" [
concept] TO BEAR on the matter of the "false claim" he's addressing [v.2] which false claim was saying [or could ever be
purported], "[that] the Day of the Lord IS PRESENT / IS ALREADY HERE [
PERFECT indicative;
transitive verb in the Grk]")--So Paul had started off this section saying, "We beseech you, brethren,
BY [G5228 - hyper] the coming/parousia of OUR Lord Jesus Christ, and OUR
gathering-together/episynagoges [NOUN] UNTO HIM" (verse 1 here referring to the CONCEPT of our rapture/SNATCH [verb], though not referring to the ACTION itself, but a NOUN... i.e. USING a DISTINCT word, but referring to the same thing... to address the specific matter of that "false claim" [v.2's false claim]);
--notice in his other letters, he often in his opening / intros, uses the three words together: "faith, love,
and HOPE"; but in THIS epistle (2Th) notice that in his intro he LEAVES OFF the word "HOPE" [the
biblical definition of "hope," bear in mind] BECAUSE this is a PRIMARY thing he is going to be addressing in
this 2nd epistle. So while 2Th2:1-2 addresses that Subject also (as in my point above), so does 1Th5:8 (and context), in a slightly different way [/purpose], where he'd used
a NOUN phrase in the following words
(to refer to same concept): "[But let us... put on... and
for an helmet]
THE HOPE OF SALVATION
[NOUN, NOUN]" (note: Paul is covering the Subject of "an
eschatological 'salvation'" in these two epistles). The phrase "the HOPE of salvation" refers specifically to "Rapture/SNATCH/caught-up" action (or event), as also "
OUR gathering-together/
episynagoges [NOUN] UNTO HIM" 2Th2:1;
--there's another "NOUN" phrase I can think of (and have posted about numerous time in past threads) but will leave that one off for now;
--there are others (or you can try to search through these two epistles yourself to find the other references to this "concept" [of our rapture event, if you will]) using both NOUNS *and* VERBS (I don't really have a problem if we want to call that "SNATCH-action" / "caught-up-action" / "Rapture-action" "the rapture" / "our rapture" in discussions, because people at least know what you're talking about, lol. It's when we get into actual word-studies where I like to be more precise, esp. if something makes a difference and impacts one's understanding in some significant way (... however, since Paul uses both nouns and verbs to refer to this concept, I'm not troubled if someone uses the phrase "the rapture" to simplify their reference to that SNATCH-action [
harpagēsometha - G726; used in 1Th4:17 - a word I RARELY hear out of the mouths of "discussion" folks, for pretty good reason... few might know what the person is even referring to! lol)
That's how I'm seeing this. Hope it helps.
