The mark of the beast?
The Coronavirus has brought all kinds of things to the fore, some good, some not so much. Conspiracy theories have flown about like a flock of pigeons in a park. Unfortunately, many of them have come from certain parts of the church world. One of the latest is that the word “Corona” adds up to 666. This has been arrived at by numerology, which simply counts the numerical value of a letter. For instance, with 26 letters in the English alphabet, A=1, B=2, C=3, and Z would equal 26. You get the picture. So using numerology:
C=3,
O=15,
R=18,
O=15,
N=14,
A=1,
Added together they come to 66. Then if you add the number of letters in Corona you have 6. Put them together and you have 666. Shazam! The claim flying around on social media is that the Coronavirus is somehow attached to the mark of the beast.
First, there are up to 18 alphabets used in the world today. One has only 12 letters. Hebrew has 22. Greek has 24. Aside from our own, Corona doesn’t add up to 666 in any of the rest. Second, John wrote in Greek. In Greek the word Corona adds up to 311, not 666. So seizing on the English alphabet to prove that Corona is somehow predictive of the mark of the beast is grossly misleading at best, embarrassing for the church at worst.
Watch out for this stuff church. Last time I checked, God doesn’t raise up numerologists. He raises up preachers. “Preach the Word” (2 Tim. 4:2) is the call of God to His church!