This passage has traditionally been understood to describe an end-of-history coming of Jesus to take the church to heaven to be with God. It needs to be read, however, with a strong awareness of the historical setting, on the one hand, and of the nature of the prophetic language, on the other. If we take these two contextual elements into account, we hear Paul constructing a powerful and urgent narrative of hope for a community facing deadly opposition from the powers of Greek-Roman paganism.