The Okie Theologian

11/27/2023

I was asked about the "Mark of the Beast" from Revelation 13 and provided these thoughts.

Just some quick, rambling notes:

Revelation is apocalyptic literature and must be interpreted as such. It is not literal, but it’s also not just a make-believe story. It is the true telling of how this age will come to a close. But, it cannot be read literally. John uses imagery and illustrations in an attempt to write down what is being shown to him. Imagine, seeing what John was shown and then trying to find human words to properly describe it. That’s why it can’t be read absolutely literally. For example, if you read through Revelation, the world gets destroyed three different times. That’s impossible, but that is what a literal interpretation would require. We struggle with that because we in the West can only look at time in a linear fashion…it only moves forward. In the ancient world, they had no such constraints about how they looked at time, and God works outside of time. So, trying to figure out the literal timing without understanding how time was viewed by the original author and audience is problematic.

Here’s how I would sum up Revelation: Essentially, Revelation tells us that there will always be powers of the world. The Roman Empire was the focus of Revelation, but the truths could be applied to the Babylonian Empire or any future empire. Revelation pits the power of the empire against God’s power. And, as expected, the empire loses every time. So, you better pick your side. Are you on God’s side and might suffer in this world or are you going to pick the empire’s side and suffer eternally? Either way, you have to pick because Jesus is coming back to judge the world and humanity will be sorted. The empires of the world, those who put their trust in the empires, and ultimately the ruler of this world (Satan) will defeated. Those who have chosen Jesus’ side will be eternally rewarded, and everyone else will be eternally condemned. It really is a letter of comfort to the seven churches that were experiencing persecution.

We can also be comforted by Revelation because it tells us that if we pick Jesus’ side, we will be on the side of the ultimate victory. What we must be very careful of is trying to read Revelation prophetically. Isaiah is a prophetic book, and there’s messianic prophecy there that comes true, literally, in Jesus. Isaiah 53 is an example of literal prophecy. Revelation is not pure prophecy, it's apocalyptic literature. It’s true, but not in an absolute literal sense. There will not be a literal beast rising out of the ocean... so we have to interpret what John meant by those beasts.

The first beast referenced by John is the Roman Empire. So, in a way, it does represent a system of government that controls every aspect of life. The second beast referenced by John is the Roman Imperial Cult. So, in a way, it could be a false religious system. I would question whether I would say these beasts are from “the pits of hell.” They are illustrations of very real worldly systems (that’s how apocalyptic literature works). Satan is said to be the ruler of this world so, in a roundabout way, yes, the beasts are under the influence of a broken world ruled by Satan (NOTE: But not outside of God’s control and limits. People like to put God and Satan on an even playing field and imagine them duking it out in a spiritual realm. This is false. God is all-powerful and permits, for reasons unknown to us, Satan to rule in this world… for now).

“The Mark of the Beast” is not a micro-chip or barcode or something like that. The mark referred to in Rev 13:16 and 17 goes back to the Roman Empire of the time. In Greek, the word is charagma, which is a word to describe an official imprint on coins or documents. This charagma refers to an official stamp or seal that someone receives when they properly worshipped, sacrificed, and gave to the Roman Imperial Cult. Caesar was considered a god and the cult demanded worship of him. When a citizen had shown proper worship, the seal or stamp was given showing they had fulfilled their duties as Roman citizens and they could easily transact business or travel. By refusing to worship the emperor through the imperial cult, the Christians did not receive the charagma and so they had difficulties in day-to-day business. Hence the encouragement to persevere.

To bring that idea to today: We all have a driver’s license that allows us to do a number of things in the society in which we live. It is almost required as a citizen of this country. Fortunately, you don’t have to worship a false god to get your DL. But, imagine if you had to go to some shrine ever so often and provide sacrifices and worship to some false god in order to get your DL revalidated. As Christians, we would refuse to do that so we would have to operate in this society without a valid driver’s license. And, it’s almost certain that the penalties for not having that DL would be much greater than they are currently. That’s what the Christians in the late first century were experiencing by not worshipping with the Roman Imperial Cult and not getting their charagma.

The infamous “666” is an ancient practice of associating numbers with letters to conceal the identity of the person under consideration. That practice is called “gematria.” For example, in Pompeii, there was graffiti from around 79 A.D. that read “I love her whose number is 545.” Only those who knew the name or the pool of candidates could work out the riddle. So, if you translate the Greek to Hebrew, 666 would work out to be Nero, the Roman emperor at the time. A textual variant of the Bible uses the number 616. This is interesting because if you go from Latin to Hebrew, Nero’s number works out to be 616. While not ironclad, it is pretty well accepted that the mark of the beast, 666, is a reference to Nero and his charagma that was provided to citizens upon proper worship.

Look at 13:9 & 10. It literally is telling the Christians that if anyone is taken captive or killed, so be it. Then the encouragement for endurance and faithfulness at the end of 10. This is the point of Revelation. Things are bad under the worldly Roman Empire (Beast 1). You are being punished for not getting the charagma (mark of the beast) from worship at Roman Imperial Cult (Beast 2) to Nero (666), but persevere because you are on the winning team.
The point of Revelation is to encourage Christians to persevere in faithfulness through their persecution because, in the end, God wins. So, pick a side!

Revelation was written for us, but not to us. Chapter 13 was not written to prophesy about some kind of physical mark to take place thousands of years in the future. It was written to guide and comfort some of God’s people in the 1st century who were facing persecution. Once we understand that, we can take the author's original intended meaning and apply that to us today. So, if we come under persecution that makes living difficult (see DL example above), we should persevere because we know that in the end, God wins, and we get the victory alongside him.

I hope this wasn’t too rambling as I was just kind of blasting out thoughts as I had them.

11/18/2023

Correct. I’ve been preaching this for a long time. People give themselves a pass and blame Satan rather than confronting their own sin or even bad choices. We must remain vigilant to spiritual warfare and pray for protection, but we must also keep our eyes focused on Jesus, the perfecter of our faith.

“But each person is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own evil desire. Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is fully grown, it gives birth to death.”
‭‭James‬ ‭1‬:‭14‬-‭15‬ ‭CSB‬‬

“Therefore, since we also have such a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every hindrance and the sin that so easily ensnares us. Let us run with endurance the race that lies before us, keeping our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. For the joy that lay before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭12‬:‭1‬-‭2‬ ‭CSB‬‬

We do not deny spiritual warfare, but some Christians need to remember to stop attributing all their problems to Satan. He is not spending all his time inconveniencing you. He is not omnipotent or omnipresent. An easy 99.9% of your problems come from your own sin and the sinful state of the world around you. Do not look to Satan when trials come; look to the Lord.

11/12/2023

Not mine but I agree completely.

11/07/2023

As life seems to get busier and busier, we need to be reminded that we are actually too busy not to pray. It is the recognition of our total dependence on God that allows us to be the most productive. Martin Luther—the same Martin Luther who lamented his own prayerlessness—recognized this and said: “I have so much business I cannot get on without spending three hours daily in prayer.”

11/06/2023

Presbyterian pastor Sinclair Ferguson in an essay on "Christ our Substitute and Conqueror" provides a powerful quote: "A comprehensively biblical exposition of the work of Christ recognizes that the atonement, which terminates on God (in propitiation) and on man (in forgiveness), also terminates on Satan (in the destruction of his sway over believers). And it does the last precisely because it does the first two."

11/01/2023

As a Christian, if your eschatology doesn't drive you to doxology, you need to reexamine your theology.

That's a highbrow way of saying: If your understanding of the end times causes you to act out of fear, prompts you to function in a different way than you are now because you believe we have "just entered the end times," or creates nothing but an "End-Times Watch" mentality, you have the wrong understanding of the doctrine of the end-times (eschatology).

I say this because a correct view of the end times sees it as the ultimate future hope and promise of God, which should only drive you to worship and praise (doxology) God for his plan, his goodness, his justice, and his faithfulness. If you don't see that God's plan for the future is nothing but good, then you need to take another look at how you understand God (theology).

10/28/2023

This is pretty wise advice from George MacDonald. “The truly wise talk little about religion and are not given to taking sides on doctrinal issues. When they hear people advocating or opposing the claims of this or that party in the church, they turn away with a smile such as men yield to the talk of children. They have no time, they would say, for that kind of thing. They have enough to do in trying to faithfully practice what is beyond dispute.”

There is certainly a place for theological discussion, which I love. But far too many people are willing to die on every hill of their beliefs. Majoring in the minor things only leads to disunity, misfocus, and minoring in the major things of the faith.

10/28/2023

The meaning behind Hamas. I recommend caution in drawing too many implications.

Hamas is an acronym for the Arabic phrase "Ḥarakah al-Muqāwamah al-ʾIslāmiyyah" which means "Islamic Resistance Movement". The word ḥamās also means "zeal", "strength", or "bravery" in Arabic.

I've been seeing people connect this Arabic acronym to the Hebrew word חָמָס or ḥāmās (which is the English transliteration) as used in Genesis 6:11. We define that word as "with violence" (Strong's H2555).

While there is no question that Hamas is an evil terrorist organization that uses violence and is opposed to God, I recommend caution in drawing too many implications from the similarity between the English transliteration of a Hebrew word and the English translation of an Arabic acronym.

If we were to venture down that rabbit hole too far, we could find, for instance, the Hebrew word נָשָׁא or nāšā' (English transliteration) that we define as "to lead astray." NASA also happens to be the English acronym for National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

If we were to follow some of these people’s logic, we would have to conclude that NASA is an organization that is in place to lead people astray. Now, some might say, "Right on!" But, again, I would suggest caution in drawing too much meaning because of the similarity. Making these types of connections can needlessly draw you away from what Jesus said was important - be ready for his return and until then, follow him and share his message with the world.