Have fun.
In John 17:15 Christ says, “I do not pray that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil one”.
John 16:33 says, “In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” John 15:19 says that Christians have been chosen “out of the world,” but it does not say that Christians will be ‘taken’ out of the world, prior to a time of persecution.
The Church will endure persecutions and tribulations and it will come through them purified.
(Mt, Rm, Cor, Thes, Rev.)
I have ZERO “problems”:
“Rev. 12, John’s vision of the woman clothed with the sun, captures the essence of the Book of Revelation. With many layers of meaning, it shows a past event prefiguring an event far off in the future. It recaps the Old Testament as it completes the New. It reveals heaven, but in images of earth.”
“John’s vision begins with the opening of God’s temple in heaven, “and the ark of His covenant was seen within the Temple” (Rev 11:19). Perhaps we can’t fully appreciate the shock value of that line. The Ark of the Covenant had not been seen for five centuries. At the time of the Babylonian captivity, the prophet Jeremiah had hidden the ark in a place that “shall be unknown until God gathers His people together again: (2 Mac 2:7)”
“That promise is fulfilled in John’s vision. The Temple appeared, “and there were flashes of lightning, loud noises, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail.” And then: “A great portent appeared in heaven , a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child” (Rev 12:1-2)”
“John would not have introduced the ark, just to drop it immediately. I believe that when John describes the woman, he is describing the ark—of the New Covenant. And who is the woman? She is the one who gives birth to the male child Who will rule the nations. The child is Jesus; His mother is Mary.”
Credit Scott Hahn