wow leololita where did you copy and paste this from? or is it your own work.
Here is an interesting discussion of parousia that highlights how the technical meaning of "arrival" or "visitation" may involve the use of apantésis in the same context to denote the act of meeting a king or official when he arrives:"The Greek word parousia can have the ordinary meaning of 'arrival' or 'return'. Paul, for example, can rejoice in the parousia of absent friends and coworkers such as Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus in 1 Corinthians 16:17 or Titus in 2 Corinthians 7:6-7...In its ancient context parousia meant an arrival at a city of a conquering general, an important official, an imperial emissary, or, above all, the emperor himself. Whether that advent was good or bad news for the citizens depended absolutely on their prior relationship with the arriving one. It is probably necessary in those cases to translate parousia not just as 'visit' but as 'visitation.' Here is a classic example that shows how the result of such a visitation (parousia) depends absolutely on the nature of its reception (apantésis)."In November of 333 B.C.E., Alexander the Great defeated and humiliated Darius of Persia at Issus in northwestern Syria, as we saw at the start of this chapter on that bronze monument at Thessaloniki's seafrony. He then marched inexorably southward toward Egypt. The Jewish high-priest Jaddus remained unwisely loyal to Darius and repulsed Alexander's initial demand for submission, according to Josephus' Jewish Antiquities (11.327-28). After devastating sieges at Tyre and Gaza, Alexander finally turned against Jerusalem. Jaddus was afraid, 'not knowing how he could meet (apantésai) the Macedonians,' so he sacrificed for deliverance and 'God spoke oracularly to him in his sleep, telling him to take courage and adorn the city with wreaths and open the gates and go out to meet them (literally, make the hypantésin), and that the people should be in white garments... And, after doing all these things that he had been told to do, [he] awaited the coming (parousia) of the king.' It was a moment for trepidation certainly and celebration possibly. (Note, once again, those technical Greek terms for the 'coming' and the 'reception')
"A visitation from the emperor was a very special occasion for any given city and quite possibly a once-in-a-lifetime event. In times of war it was of course a threatening advent, as in the above story, but under the Pax Romana, an imperial visitation would usually be a happy occasion. It demanded tremendous preparation for civic sacrifice, aristocratic festivity, and popular celebration, but especially a formal greeting by elites and people at the submissivly opened gates of the city. Notice Paul's use of those technical terms for visitation and reception. He uses parousia for 'our Lord Jesus at his coming' in 1 Thessalonians 2:19, the 'coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints' in 3:13, 'the coming of the Lord' in 4:15, and 'the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ' in 5:23. He uses apantésis for when the Thessalonian Christians will "meet the Lord in the air" at his parousia at 4:17. That metaphor controls the entire discussion." (John Dominic Crossan and Jonathan L. Reed, In Search of Paul: How Jesus' Apostle Opposed Rome's Empire with God's Kingdom, pp. 167-168)
The usage of parousia in 1 Thessalonians is thus consistent with this technical sense. We find the same thing in Matthew. It is the arrival and not the subsequent presence that is prominent in the portion of the discourse dealing with the parousia, with the verb for "come" occurring some 11 times. The admonition is for Christians to be "ready" (hetoimoi) when the Son of Man comes (erkhetai), because they would not know what day or hour he is coming (24:44), and so they must "stay awake" (grégoreite) as v. 42 puts it. This is reminiscent of the high priest Jaddus above, who prepared for the Macedonian king's arrival and who was ready for it. This theme was dramatized in the three parables that follow, including the parable of the ten virgins who waited for the arrival of the bridegroom but who fell asleep (25:5). They did come however prepared with lamps to use when meeting (hupantésin) the bridegroom (25:1). Those who adequately prepared for the late arrival of the bridegroom had enough oil to keep their lamps lit when he in fact arrived. So even though they all fell asleep, those who prepared for the arrival of the bridegroom were there when the midnight cry rang forth announcing the arrival of the bridegroom and commanding the virgins: "Go out to meet (apantésin) him!" (v. 6). This quite clearly dramatizes the parousia in the technical sense as a "visitation".