So that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name. – Revelation 13:17

Today's Scripture Reading (July 23, 2024): Revelation 13

Tommy Tutone is probably best remembered for the destruction of a phone number. The destruction came In his song, Jenny, and most of us who grew up in that era probably already have the phone number memorized. I may not be able to remember my phone number from the early 1980s or the numbers of any of my good friends, but I know the phone number of Tommy Tutone's fictional Jenny; it is 867-5309. The poor people who had that number had to quickly get rid of it as thousands of nuisance calls started pouring into these phones asking for Jenny. If they weren't aware of popular music, it would probably be quite a mystery why all these people would have suddenly thought that someone named Jenny might have lived there. Since 1981, the year the song was released, 867-5309 has become synonymous with Tommy Tutone's Jenny.

John says that no one will be able to buy or sell anything unless they have the mark, which is the name or the number of the beast. It was a common practice in that culture to transcribe a name into a number by assigning a number to each letter of the alphabet. In English, it would be like saying A=1, B=2, C=3, etc., and then totaling up the numerical value of the letters of your name. (I did mine just for fun, and I think my name works out to a value of 196.) There is graffiti among the ruins of Pompei that has a message that reads, "I love her whose number is 545."

Some have argued that this prophecy was actually fulfilled soon after John wrote it down. Several times in history, a name or a number was required to sell something in the main square. Even today, cities require the purchase of a business license to sell goods and a tax number to ensure that the government gets its required cut. However, such an understanding doesn't apply to the conditions described in this passage.

Others have argued that what is described here sounds suspiciously like the projected move to a cashless buying and selling system in our current society. It is already possible to implant a chip in our hands, and then, when we go to the store, we could just present our hands, and the transaction will go through rather than trying to find our credit or debit card. But again, the description that is given in this passage seems to be of something more nefarious than a simple business transaction.

Whatever it is, I think it will be obvious when the time comes. Then, we will once again realize that we must choose between God and the designs of the beast, whose number we know but whose name remains a mystery.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Revelation 14