2:13 ...”you received the word of God from HEARING us.... (Oral tradition- not “Bible Alone”....Remember, Paul taught at this church ORALLY years before he wrote this letter...or any other New Testament letter.)

4:13-17 Paul is merely offering hope to the Thessalonians who were concerned that their friends who had died while awaiting Jesus’return would not be resurrected.  He was NOT espousing the “Rapture Theory” or any of it’s sub-categories that were invented in the 1830’s by some fundamentalist Protestants. (Read “The Rapture Trap” by Paul Thigpen for greater depth into this selfish error.  Also , read CCC 671-679.) 

We should be far more concerned about our relationship to God at  OUR “End Times” than when or how this world ends!!