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GENESIS CHAPTER 11
1 And the earth was of one tongue, and of the same speech.
2 And when they removed from the east, they found a plain in the land of Sennaar, and dwelt in it.
3 And each one said to his neighbour: Come, let us make brick, and bake them with fire. And they had brick instead of stones, and slime instead of mortar.
4 And they said: Come, let us make a city and a tower, the top whereof may reach to heaven: and let us make our name famous before we be scattered abroad into all lands.
5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of Adam were building.
6 And he said: Behold, it is one people, and all have one tongue: and they have begun to do this, neither will they leave off from their designs, till they accomplish them in deed.
7 Come ye, therefore, let us go down, and there confound their tongue, that they may not understand one another's speech.
8 And so the Lord scattered them from that place into all lands, and they ceased to build the city.
9 And therefore the name thereof was called Babel, because there the language of the whole earth was confounded: and from thence the Lord scattered them abroad upon the face of all countries.
The Tower of Babylon is an iconic or a symbolic tower in the story of beginnings. The height of the tower symbolizes the peak our human pride and our ambition to be above ourselves and others and even above God.
PERSONAL: BEING A MODERN DAY CHRISTIAN
This chapter is another confirmation of the special relationship between God and human being as God intervenes human affairs. God’s mysterious and creative response to the building of the tower shows that He cares about the effect of sin to His creation. He needed to create a situation in such a way that the human race will improve and not regress. It makes me feel that God is just right there in front of our human affairs watching and thinking creatively on how to intervene perfectly without violating His promise.
My ambition and pride should therefore not be like the tower of Babel. It should rather be conforming with God’s will. My ambition and pride should be shaped according to the values of the Bible. To do it, one’s conscience must have a proper perspective or correct world view.
SPIRITUAL: MODERN DAY CHURCH
The church’s theology of sin and its punishment is very evident in this chapter. Sin is very well manifested in the tower of Babel while God’s creative and wise-loving, punitive-formative response is likewise manifested in the variation of language. The variation of language is like a form of creative and formative punishment that would make human beings better persons. It therefore makes them better persons as they do not become from God because the variation of language hinders them from pursuing their independence from God.
It poses a challenge for the modern church to portray a picture of a loving and forgiving God in the face of a very sinful generation.
In this chapter, the human adventures in science and technology is just but a repetition or a mirror of the building of the tower of Babel. The church being the conscience of the society is rather challenged to make this chapter creatively and effectively communicated to everyone so the values of humility, respect for God, obedience will be infused in the minds of the people.
SOCIAL: SOCIETY IN 2011
The variation of language supports cultural diversity. Although we are diverse, the idea that language divides us is the same idea or solution to the problem of division brought about cultural diversity. In other words, it is but language that can make us one and come up with universal ideas and laws. The effort to come up with a universal language is making man better persons. Why? In the process of learning the universal language such as English, man learns humility, gains social and emotional connection with other races, learns to appreciate diversity of culture as he looks back at his own culture and compare it with others.
The list of the descendants of Shem or the descendants of Terah is a good reminder to the society to respect family being the basic unit of society. It is something that the society should preserve. There are a lot of issues that the society should address in order to protect the family. These issues include: health hazards, the propagation of false notion of over population, abortion, same sex marriage, violence, etc. The family being the source of values, life, nourishment, and love is threatened by anti-life policies due to the hoax of over population. Same sex marriage also threatens family since pro-creation is not possible in this union. Violence in the family creates a dysfunctional family. The society should therefore imbibe the respect for family as implied in this chapter.