You’ve come to the same conclusion I have: if it doesn’t have a neural interface that mars the connection between the deiform soul with which we were created and the mind and body, it doesn’t have the properties Scripture attributes to the Mark. Folks who fret that RFID chips will be turned into the Mark of the Beast don’t seem to have noticed that one can repent of being “chipped” by having the force of will to apply a pen-knife to remove the chip (or the lesser forces of will to submit to someone else removing it — and less fortitude is needed if anesthetics can be procured.)
I believe you are on the right track.
Before he is revealed, there will come a Great Apostasy or falling away.
Technology has already presented neurological grafting and programming of chips. Those in the hand provide immediate dexterity and physical manipulation skills. Those in the head afford immediate gain of academic training.
As 2 way communication devices, they also would have the ability to project a voice into the recipients’ perceptions. They also might be used to interrupt ‘forbidden’ thinking processes.
God’s solution and provision for our continued fellowship with Him and the continuing work of God the Holy Spirit in every believer while in fellowship with Him, is premised upon our facing Him (turning back to Him in our thinking, metanoia) and confessing our known and unknown sins to Him, through faith in what Christ provided on the Cross.
If we sin and fail to turn back to Him and confess those sins through faith in Him, we don’t return to fellowship with Him.
If this happened to everybody, there would be a Great Apostasy whenever we happened to sin.
If this mark is the method to interrupt our ability to return to Him, then many things in Scripture make very clear sense. It would explain why future world leaders would exclaim, ‘who can oppose him’. It would be an abomination causing desolation. It would explain why our Lord and Savior warned us millennium in advance of this horrid situation. It would explain why such a mark would be more heinous than even the Holocaust. It also is consistent with us knowing that even after the day of the Lord, we will have a Millennium rule by a rod of iron with Christ as the King sitting on the throne of David. Unlike this present age, God the Holy Spirit will not indwell Christians, but in that age He will indwell the Jew. That remnant is preserved.
During that age, the thinking of not only men, but all Creatures will change. The technology will remain, but now be controlled by humans by the Son of God. It explains a return to the sacrificial system of worship in that age.
It also explains why believers should never take the mark, even if threatened with capital punishment. It’s consequences are far worse than death. It’s an eternal separation from God. Never take the mark of the beast.
If nothing else, one could take Jesus's words as literal:
If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire.
-- Matthew 18:8