Tag: confusion

Yes, I know I skipped a chapter. I suppose it had to happen sometime. I’m sure there will be other chapters in the future that I’ll skip too.

For the most part it won’t mean I didn’t read it, just that I didn’t particularly get anything out of it. Maybe I’ll tackle them the next time around.

At first glance, the story of Babel seems to portray God as a big bully that just knocks down some helpless little kids’ sand castle and chases them all away.

I suppose the biggest reason it seems this way to me is that his motives for doing so are not spelled out. At least it’s not spelled out clearly enough to my liking.

What’s wrong with trying to establish unity?

What’s wrong with trying to accomplish great things?

What’s wrong with trying to make a name for yourself?

At a guess, they were trying to make their culture man-centered, not God-centered.

They said, Come, let US build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that WE may make a name for OURSELVES. (Genesis 11:4, emphasis mine.)

The last time people started to think that way, things got so bad in the culture that God had to wipe them out in the flood.

And here it was, not so many years later, and the same pattern was cropping up again. And so God stopped it before it could begin.

Verse 9 is very interesting, saying the city was named Babel (which sounded like the Hebrew word for “confused”) because the Lord confused the language of the whole world.

It strikes me that confusion is the result of any culture or person that tries to live without God.

People stray from God’s way of dealing with people, and then wonder why they have relationship problems.

People stray from God’s pattern of marriage, and they wonder why their marriages don’t work.

People stray from God’s pattern of raising kids, and they can’t understand why their kids are going berserk.

People stray from God’s ideal for sex, and then wonder why we face the social problems of unwanted babies, abortions, teenage single moms, kids raised without a father, poverty, not to mention numerous broken hearts.

People try to find joy apart from the Joy-giver, and then can’t figure out why what joy they do find never seems to last very long.

Life without God can be spelled very simply: C-O-N-F-U-S-I-O-N. That’s what the people of Babel found. That’s what people find even today.

What’s the solution? Go back to the one who created life. When you do, you not only find a life that works, but you find life itself. For God is life.

Jesus said,

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. (John 10:10)

Would we only believe that.