Signing your name for a purchase is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. Last week Mastercard declared that signatures are no longer required on any credit card purchases. Visa, American Express, and Discover are expected to follow suit later this month. Your signed name is no longer the key to protecting against fraud. Businesses are relying on chip technology and other measures to ensure that transactions are secure.
People have long talked about the ominous specter of numbers replacing names in ordinary society and commerce. Some fundamentalist Christians have associated that trend with the “mark of the beast” mentioned in Revelation 13:16-17. Whether or not such a literal reading of that text is correct, Scripture does often highlight the importance of names, especially the divine Name.
In our text from Acts this Sunday, Acts 19:8-22, it is the name of Jesus which is at the heart of events, as observers of the Christian community see miracles happening in Jesus’ name. Seven would-be exorcists find themselves in over their heads when they attempt to duplicate Paul’s results by using the name of Jesus to drive out an evil spirit. The reply in verse 15 is a demonic, but spot-on calling out of their hubris, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?”
In attempting to make use of the name of Jesus, in what might be called a sort of “identity theft,” those seven sons of Sceva failed to take account of their own identities in relation to Jesus. We may want to read and be cautioned about our own presumptions in relation to the name of Jesus. As we invoke His name in our own prayers and petitions, we may want to consider who we are in relation to Jesus. Does our own sense of personal identity legitimately connect us with that Name? Or are we constructing our identities, our very selves, in some other way, perhaps on our own accomplishments or on other relationships that have little to do with Jesus?
Do we have a good answer for a demon, or anyone else, who asks us, “But who are you?” May it be so. May we place our primary identity, our personal sense of who we are, first and foremost in Jesus Christ our Savior.