What is the rapture?

"Rapture" describes an event Paul mentions in 1 Thessalonians: at Christ's return, believers who are still alive will be "caught up together" with resurrected believers "to meet the Lord in the air." The English word comes from the Latin translation of the Greek word meaning "caught up" or "seized"—rapturo.

This isn't a separate doctrine most Christians throughout history organized their theology around in the specific way it's often discussed today. The framework popularly associated with "the rapture"—a secret, sudden removal of believers before a future seven-year tribulation period—was developed specifically in the 1830s by John Nelson Darby and later popularized widely through the influential Scofield Reference Bible in the early 20th century.

Many Christians, including most Catholics and Orthodox Christians and many Protestants, affirm 1 Thessalonians 4 fully while understanding it as describing the single, general resurrection and gathering at Christ's return—not a distinct, earlier event separated from a later second coming by years of tribulation.