March 29 - The Tower (of Babylon, Iraq)
Contributed by
Merritt Gardner, retired professor of mathematics on Monday March 29
Scripture
Genesis 11:1-9
Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And
as they migrated from the east, they came upon a plain in the land
of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, ‘Come,
let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.’ And they had brick
for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, ‘Come, let us
build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and
let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered
abroad upon the face of the whole earth.’
The LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals
had built. And the LORD said, ‘Look, they are one people, and
they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what
they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible
for them. Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there,
so that they will not understand one another’s speech.’ So the
LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the
earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore it was called
Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the
earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the
face of all the earth.
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Devotion
Look at that tower, or I should say, that part of a
tower over there.
A real monument to human folly.
How so?
After the flood, we were commanded to scatter and
cover the earth. But that was too scary. People were afraid to get
too isolated. They felt they needed each other for protection. So
they gathered into cities. But God didn't like what we were doing.
Why?
First, it wasn't as commanded. Second, the tower.
They were trying to show how great they were, that they could
reach heaven, and be like God. They became so self-centered and
present centered, they began to think of themselves as eternal
beings. They forgot their mortality.
Were there other problems?
Without heaven's input, they became so wrapped
up in their own thinking, that it and their morality became ingrown
and warped. Even their technical thinking became distorted for
lack of outside critique.
Gradually, their ingrown, self-centered thinking narrowed, finally
so much that they couldn't talk to each other. They formed splinter
groups, and their society exploded and spread apart.
That tower is a monument to a false dream that could not be
sustained. A dream without God that turned out to be a mirage.
And so?
And so they spread out to cover the earth as they
were commanded to do in the first place.
And the uncompleted tower becomes a
monument to human folly and arrogance.
Unless God is part of a tower's construction, the
builders build in vain.
O Lord, give me the courage, the humility, and the realism I need
to live a destiny that has your blessing.
(All rights reserved.)
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