Genesis 11:5-9. 5And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. 6And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. 7Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.” 8So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. 9Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth. And from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth.
Do you know what it means to preserve something? It means to save it. If you preserve food you save it for later by putting it in a can or a jar. If you preserve an old house or car you save it from falling apart and make it so that it can be useful again.
The Tower of Babel story is a story of God preserving people. In the flood story, God destroyed everyone and everything except Noah and whatever was on the ark. But in the Tower of Babel story, God doesn’t even consider destroying anything (remember, God promised not to). Yes, he does punish the people, but he does it in order to preserve the people.
Genesis 11:5-9 is almost funny to read. The people are building what they think is a giant tower into Heaven, but the Lord has to come down just to see it. The people want desperately to stay together and never be scattered, yet God will confuse their languages and disperse them over the face of the earth. We can imagine how crazy things got as suddenly, out of nowhere, everyone is speaking a different language – Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.
This story can seem a bit confusing at first. Why is God against the people working together to build something, isn’t that a good thing? Doesn’t God want unity and teamwork?
Yes, he does. But the problem isn’t their unity, it is their unity that is centered on themselves rather than on God. Like we said on Day 38, this is a unity centered on pride that will actually destroy love and unity in the long run. People will be forced to work and build the tower. Soon there will be slavery and oppression. Because of the sin in our hearts, we always tend to use our abilities and accomplishments to hurt others more than help others. This is why God says, this is only the beginning of what they will do. God knows that in order to preserve us, he will have to divide us (something he commanded people to do back in Genesis 10).
And so God came down to us. Not just to punish us, but to preserve us. He came to confuse our languages so that we would divide. Why? Because God knows that until his grace and love are at the center of our lives, we can never be trusted to live together in unity and peace.
But with Jesus, God’s grace and love are at our center. Jesus living inside of us as Christians allows all the different Christians to come together again and live in peace and harmony. Not to build our own city and tower for our own glory, but to build the kingdom of Jesus and to be a tower reaching to Heaven. You see, with the Holy Spirit living in us, we don’t need a tower to reach into Heaven, we can pray and reach God in Heaven any time we want to. And that’s good news!
With Jesus, God is preserving us, not by dividing us, but by bringing us together again under him. Jesus is at our center, not our own pride. Now we can be together without hurting each other; we can be together and love each other and care for each other, knowing that Jesus always cares for us.
Questions: What are some things that tend to divide people today? How can Jesus bring people together? How can you see your church bringing people together under Jesus?
TLICfamily 