Lord Jesus gave us, His Church, only one time about His future coming to gather His Church. And Apostle Paul in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17 is actually repeating what Jesus gave. Both examples are the same events, each Scripture just gives some different descriptions of that same event.
Matt 24:29-31
29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:
30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
31 And He shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
KJV
And no, the above is not just for Jews. It is for Christ’s Church, which that is who the disciples with Him upon the Mount of Olives represented, i.e., the early Church.
Notice especially ‘where’… those saints are gathered ‘from’. In the above Olivet discourse version, these saints are gathered from one end of Heaven to the other. That means they are gathered by Christ in Heaven. That directly parallels the ‘asleep’ saints that have already died in Christ, and Apostle Paul said in 1 Thess.4:13-16 that Jesus will bring those with Him when He comes.
Now look at the Mark 13 version of this part of Christ’s Olivet disourse.
Mark 13:24-27
24 But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light,
25 And the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken.
26 And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.
27 And then shall He send His angels, and shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven.
KJV
In the Mark 13 example of the gathering by Christ at His future coming, notice these saints are gathered from… “the uttermost part of the earth”. That is a direct parallel to Apostle Paul’s 1 Thess.4:17 verse about the saints still alive on earth on the day of Christ’s future coming being “caught up” to Him in the air.
What does this mean?
Simple. It means Apostle Paul in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17 was ‘repeating’… what Lord Jesus taught about the day of His future coming and gathering of His Church. And in both examples of Christ’s Olivet discourse, He revealed that day would be immediately AFTER the tribulation.
Thus we do not have to wonder what timing Lord Jesus’ coming to gather us will be, for He told us. Apostle Paul in 1 Thess.4 didn’t give that after the tribulation timing. But did Paul really need to, since he was repeating what Lord Jesus had already taught about His coming? I don’t think so.
This ultimately means men’s doctrines about a pre-trib rapture prior to the tribulation, or a mid-trib rapture prior to the tribulation, all fall to the wayside and does not align with the actual written Word of God.