Christians: Why does the Bible read over and over again as if...?

I think Christ was telling them about the coming of the church as a force in the world. They did see that in their lifetimes. The church is the Kingdom of God on earth, His people doing His work to make this world a better place. Jesus told them that the world would be destroyed, and it was. They world that they lived in collapsed into ruins, burned to the ground with the fall of Rome, and resurrected in the Renaissance to become what we live in now. It is nothing like it once was. Read Revelation carefully and you will come to see that at least half of it has already happened.