What Scripture says

Paul connects our gathering to Christ with a warning: that day will not come until the falling away and the revealing of the man of sin who sits in the temple claiming to be God. Christ places His gathering after the tribulation in Matthew 24. Paul says the change occurs at the last trumpet, while Mark records Christ saying He has foretold us all things.

How I understand it

I do not understand Scripture to promise a pre-tribulation rapture. I understand Satan—the instead-of-Christ—to arrive first and offer the world peace, prosperity, and a false rescue. The danger is not that Christians knowingly worship Satan; it is that they are taught to expect the wrong arrival and sincerely mistake him for Christ.

What you should examine

Read 2 Thessalonians 2 without separating its gathering from the events Paul says must happen first. Compare Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21, and the trumpet sequence in Revelation. Ask whether any passage plainly places the gathering before the false Christ appears.