The Mark of the Beast

Eye_Of_Sauron_by_SonicSyndrome

“I will give him a new NAME.” -Jesus (Revelation 2:17)

“It causes all to be marked with the NUMBER.” -Revelation 13

The Lamb gives you a NAME.
The Beast gives you a NUMBER.

Is the Lamb analog and the Beast is digital?

The Lamb is personal
The Beast is impersonal.

The Lamb is all about persons.
The Beast is all about numbers.

(One of the few direct mentions of the satan in the Old Testament is when the satan moved King David to number the people.)

Be suspicious of things that are too obsessed with numbers.

Be nervous when churches are too obsessed with numbers.

Be wary of dehumanized forms of communication that turn everything into 1’s and 0’s.

(Is this why it’s so easy to behave beastly on Facebook and Twitter?)

A “virtual” world is a Gnostic world — not the good Creation of God.

I use digital communication. A lot. Obviously.

But I’m also suspicious of it. I think it’s inherently dangerous.

Turning names into numbers. It’s a kind of mark of the Beast.

Calling things by their names is the way of the Lamb and the first vocation of man. (Genesis 2:19)

So go for a walk. Outdoors. See some birds and trees. Learn their names.

Have a conversation. With a human being. Face to face.

We are names, not numbers.

The Beast gives us a NUMBER.
But the Lamb gives us a NAME.

BZ

(The artwork is The Eye of Sauron.)