One of the things I love about being in the Chicagoland area is the fact that many cultures and races of people live here. I used to be the music director at Harvest Bible Chapel in Niles, IL, a suburb very close to downtown. Something I'll never forget there was the fact that I, being Caucasian and an English speaker, was the minority. I loved that when I walked through the lobby, the first language I'd hear was Polish, or perhaps Spanish. Our service was translated into both of those languages as well. It makes me reflect on how our differing languages started.
Language barriers are just that, barriers. As cool as it was to have a very diverse church family in Niles, the fact of the matter is, having a language barrier makes things difficult sometimes. It's almost as if God wanted us to have a difficult time working internationally, or dealing with people who aren't American. But the truth is, even the creation of language differentiation was another one of God's intention to prevent out of LOVE! God always has a loving intention because God IS love (1Jn. 4:16). In the previous blog, I wrote on God's loving intention in the circumstance of man being banished from the Garden of Eden. Eight Chapters later, we now see another circumstance where God's love is the motivation behind what we could quickly call an inconvenience.
Genesis 11:5-7 "And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. And 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. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another's speech."
Have you ever looked at this passage, like I have before, and thought, "awe man! why did God have to do that!? Now I'm stuck having to take Spanish in school." I mean, why did God really feel the need to have to confuse the languages of the people, they were just building a tower weren't they?
The context of the passage is that the whole earth prior to God's confusion of the language was completely uniform in words and speech. The people were realizing that they were starting to become fairly populated and great in number. Naturally, since humans are pride driven more often than not, they wanted to make sure that before they got too big that they made sure the rest of the world after them would recognize the amazing feat of which they were to accomplish of a "capital" with a huge tower. The tower was meant to be so large that it reached the heavens giving them divine status. The Lord saw this and out of Love came down and prevented them from doing this.
A loving intention became a grand prevention of rebellion. See, the omniscient Lord knew what a sinful humanity was capable of unified: "and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them."(vs6) By confusing and scattering humanity in this famous historical event, the Lord prevented humanity from uniting in sinful desires. A whole world of humans united against the Lord is a rebellion that the Lord prevented with his act of Love.
This sets up perfectly for what was to come in His Son Jesus, who would, in His truth and promise, reverse the effect of the Tower of Babel by opening the door to all nations to receive the membership to the eternal life club. The Gospel going out to all nations is God's love in action by saying, "remember how I had to split you up so that you wouldn't combine and rebel against me, now you can join together in my family and reap the benefits and enjoy my free gift to you: Life everlasting!"
Back to my experience in Niles, IL, I rejoice now seeing God's reversal of the Tower of Babel for His glory by the many cultures, tongues and peoples coming together to do nothing but lift high the name of Jesus Christ and proclaim His truth throughout the world! Till one day the ultimate reversal of Babel will occur when we all together will join in and praise, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb!" (Rev 7:9-12)
Let's stay eternally focused, and not stress or worry about the small things today that seem inconvenient but may be a way that God lovingly intended for Good, and ultimately to give glory to Him and Him alone!
~Moellerd
No comments:
Post a Comment