Tribulation, Revelation and the Saints

I was reading Revelation 13-14, and a few verses caught by eye:

“All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast–all whose names have not been written in the book o f life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world.He who has ears, let him hear. If anyone is to go into captivity, into captivity he will go. If anyone is to be killed with the sword, with the sword he will be killed. This calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of the saints.“

- Revelation 13:8-10

“This calls for patient endureance on the part of the saints who obey God’s commandments and remain faithful to Jesus.“

- Revelation 14:12

And earlier:

“They [the saints] overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.“

- Revelation 12:11

In the back of my head, there has always been the question of whether Christians will be raptured pre-tribulation or post-tribulation (or during the tribulation). I will attempt to make sense of this for myself, and for you, good reader, leaving myself open to correction.

Of the passages that talk about the “end of times,” I know of: Matthew 24-25, Mark 13, so we’ll start there.  Before we start, why does this question matter to a believer? At the very core of the question of when the ra pture will take place is the question, “Will believers have to suffer tribulation?” The answer to that question will undoubtedly have a profound affect on how we view and live our lives.

(to be continued in part II…)