The more I take time to study the Bible the more I find that some of the stories that I brought with me from childhood were not always accurate.
I don’t know if it is the result of poor Sunday school teaching or children’s Bible story books that lost their way as they attempted to take complex pieces of scripture that need to be held in context of the surrounding chapters, the book they are found in, and the Bible as a whole and put them in words a 5 year old could understand. Or it could be that my limited and childish way of thinking took a story from what it is and twisted it into what it is not? No matter how it happened I stumbled upon one of these stories this week in my study of Genesis.
The tower of Babel was always one of those “minor” Bible stories. It was not Noah’s Ark, the 10 Plagues, David and Goliath, or Daniel in the Lion’s Den. But it was still thrown into the mix from time to time as I grew up and even as I read Bible story books to my children when they were young but I can’t say I ever spent much time with it. My memory of the story and what it was about was this: after the flood the people wanted to make a way for themselves to get to heaven so they planned to build a big tower that would get them there. (The original Stairway to Heaven!) This was wrong for them to do because the only way to heaven was through God, we cannot get there on our own. While there is some sound theology in this I discovered that this is not what the story is about.
When I read the story of the Tower of Babel this week in Genesis 11: 1-9 what I read did not seem to fit with the story that I held in my mind’s eye of felt board figures trying to build a tower to heaven. While I try and not acknowledge my phone during my morning quiet time it can be a handy tool when I need to dig a little bit deeper on a passage of Scripture. I headed to my go-to site easyenglish.bible first. This site offers commentaries that put scripture into easy to understand words and sometimes add some cultural context. I found some information there but was not satisfied so I tried gotquestions.org and an excerpt from an online commentary by Mathew Henry to get additional perspectives and pieces to this puzzle.
What I discovered is that this story is actually about obedience.
God had told Noah and his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth to take their families, spread out, and multiply. Multiply they did, spread out they did not. The people decided that it would be better to stick together in one place than to obey God’s instruction. God saw that having a common language was allowing people to be unified in their decisions and their actions. He also noted that not only were the people staying together they were relying on one another rather than Him. They wanted to build a fortified city to protect themselves and build a tower to bring themselves fame for generations for what they had been capable of accomplishing.
All of this was not the kind of relationship that God desired to have with the people that he had just saved from total destruction brought by the flood. Hebrews 10:24 says “Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works.” When we love one another we point each other to God since God, by definition, is love (1 John 4: 7-8). So the people at Babel were not loving nor were they encouraging each other on to good works. Their unity was driving them toward sin not toward God. Because of that, God brought the whole thing to an end by disrupting the way the people communicated with each other. People began grouping together with those who could understand them and those groups moved off to their own place, thus fulfilling God’ instruction to spread out.
There were a couple of things that stood out to me as I relearned this classic Bible story.
- I don’t know about you but I have found that when I choose to not obey clear instructions from God it never turns out well for me.
- I was amazed at what the people were able to accomplish when they were unified.
Together they chose to make bricks of clay that they “burned”, essentially fired in a kiln, to make them stronger as opposed to just letting the clay dry in the sun or using stone which was much more common for the time. With the strong bricks and tar to hold them together, the people were able to make an impressive building. Genesis 6:11 reads “Look!” [God] siad. “The people are united, and they all speak the same language. After this, nothing they set out to do will be impossible for them!” There is so much strength in unity! We can accomplish so much when we are unified as the body of Christ or even in our families. It is no wonder that Satan works so hard to bring division and tear both apart!
Just think of what we could accomplish if we were all unified in obedience to Christ!
Have you ever found as an adult that the Bible story you remember from childhood doesn’t quite line up with what you know about God and Scripture now?
Have you ever had an experience where you knew God was calling you to do something and you chose not to do it but He found a way to accomplish His will anyway? Was there any fallout from that?
Do you think unity matters? What is one area of life that you think could see real change if we could be unified about it as the Church, as a family, or even as a community?
I would love to hear your thoughts! I always learn more when discussing the Bible with others. Leave a comment below!
