The Tower of Babel

Story: The tower of Babel

Passage: Genesis 11:1-9

Characters: man, God

Summary: Man had one language. He lived in one place and decided to build a vast city with a tall tower to avoid being dispersed over the Earth. God examined the city. In order to keep them from being able to do anything they wanted, He confused their language and scattered them over all the Earth.

Notes: First of all, this story resonates with me since I plan on going to another culture and learning their language and giving them God's word. This is the origin of languages and most likely it is also the origin of cultural diversity in the world. The issue with the city was not that the tower was supposed to be really tall, but rather that the intention of the people was to make a name for themselves. When we make it our goal to glorify our own name instead of glorifying Christ's name, we are in big trouble. They also were trying to avoid God's call to multiply and fill the Earth. They did not want to disperse, they were happy where they were. God knew that the people were unstoppable when they were united. Today, we have the Spirit and we are called to unity with each other and chrsit in order to be unstoppable for the kingdom of God. But we have the attitude of the Babel aftermath. We don't want this unity. We don't understand how we can have this unity. This unity which necessitated an intervention from God is now a foreign concept for us. God decided the best way to scatter the people and help keep them under control was by giving them different languages. And the need for translators began!

Questions: How many languages did God create? Were they similar to modern languages at all? Who was the first multilingual person and did it take long to occur? What could humanity have achieved without God's intervention? In our increasingly global society, we see more and more progress in technology and science. Are we achieving the Babel mindset once again? If humanity had been allowed to unify, how evil would the result have been? How can Christians better unify to make a name for God?

Lessons: Unity is an extremely powerful concept. We must remember that! We are called to unity with other believers and with Christ. If we avoid this unity we are rejecting some of the power which God is giving us. We must also remember to glorify God and not ourselves. When we bring glory to God, He lets us unify in Him and His power in order to change the world!