The apostle Paul in 1 Thessalonians speaks of Christians as people who ‘wait for [God’s] son from heaven…who rescues us from the coming wrath’ (1 Thess 1.10). Later, Paul adds that ‘we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep’ (1 Thess 4.15). He does not say, ‘those who are alive’ (which could refer to some far future and as yet unknown group), but ‘we who are alive’, thus showing his expectation that the Lord will come before Paul’s death. Furthermore, Paul boldly claims that this is ‘the Lord’s own word’ (1 Thess 4.15).

The plain fact is that the end of the world simply did not come before Paul’s hearers had all died. Paul was writing in the 50′s AD and today’s date is 2019. So one can demonstrate empirically that Paul was mistaken.