Some infographics were very difficult to create. First, because of the complexity of the prophecies in almost every chapter. Second, because we needed to place the entire content of a prophecy within a limited space in the book. Each infographic takes up 2 pages, or a double page. Many times we have divided the theme content into more than one infographic, but always looking for different aspects of the theme. For example, in chapters 12, 13 and 17 we first explain about the prophetic figure presented in the prophecy, that is, about its characteristics, and then we talk about the history of this figure in the timeline. Also, in some infographics we made a comparative timeline with another corresponding prophecy from Revelation, or with another prophetic moment. Lastly we had connections with the Heavenly Sanctuary. You can see more about the structure of infographics in the post: Developing the book structure. All these factors and the massive amount of information made it very difficult to do the job. It was a huge challenge, but a good one! :)
Let me talk about a situation Jessica and I faced when we were developing one of these more complex themes. Chapter 17 is always challenging for those who want to know a little more about the Bible. Several parts of this prophecy point to events that are in the future and this is always a complicating factor. In this chapter we needed to develop a main timeline describing the actions of the prophetic figures -- woman/prostitute, the beast where the prostitute sits on, the horns of the beast, etc. We also had to describe the actions of each element, or each part, of the prophetic figure, from the beginning to the end of each of the elements. In addition to the main timeline we decided to make a second timeline parallel to the main narrative. We decided to do this because one of the characters portrayed in the prophecy is a scarlet beast. It turns out that one of the angels who are in the heavenly sanctuary and who has one of the seven bowls containing the plagues of God in his hands is sent to John to explain the meaning of the vision to the prophet. Among other elements, the angel presents the meaning of who the scarlet beast is through a parallel shown in verses 8 and 11. Very briefly, we understand that these verses outline the actions of the beast in the past, present (according to the historical point of John) and future.
What we had to do was fit the phases that outlined the beast's actions together with the general events of the prophecy. We had a huge amount of data to tabulate and fit into the infographic. Besides the challenge of the two timelines, we still very much wanted to talk about a second participation of the angel, who explained the interpretation of the vision to John in another part of Revelation, specifically in chapter 21:9. We had to do all of this, fitting all the information into the proposed structure for the infographic, obviously. :[
We got together several times to make this infographic. Once, on one of the many holidays we worked on, we went to a friend's house and spent the day there reading, scribbling sketches and asking God to enlighten us so we could get the job done. After a lot of dedication and without a doubt having God directing us, we finished the infographic. Despite being very exhausting, the result was worth the effort. God moves. God empowers. God strengthens!
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