WHAT I LEARNED WHEN I READ THE BIBLE
We have learned that the Bible is a love story about God’s redemptive plan for us. The Old Testament points the way, and the New Testament fulfills the New Covenant of Christ. With that said, there are many stories throughout the Bible that I would term side-stories. They might not directly relate to God’s singular plan, but they are there for a reason, and God uses each incident as a lesson. Genesis 11:1-4 is one such story. The Tower of Babel. The tower was located outside Babylonia in Iraq, which, today, is about 50 miles south of Baghdad. Nimrod, a grandson Ham, built the tower in his humanly efforts to reach heaven. It was Nimrod’s way of thumbing his nose at God. (As a reminder, Ham was the cursed son of Noah, so we already know good things do not happen to Nimrod.) To destroy Nimrod’s plans, God “confused” the language of the people building the tower. “Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other. So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.” (Genesis 11:7-9 NIV). Man’s original sin was thinking he could become like God. Who do we think made the tree outside our window? Who made the dog sitting on our lap? Everything has a beginning, but where did the beginning come from? Whether you believe in Creationism or a Big Bang Theory, where did the first molecules come from? Where did the atoms come from? Where did the energy come from to produce earth? No matter how you slice it, there must be a Creator, and that Creator has made Himself well known, if you will just look and listen. Man thinks he can become his own God, but God will not be mocked, and the story of the Tower of Babel is one of the earliest examples of this.