Is Genesis History?Sample

Lesson 6: What happened at Babel? (Is Genesis History?) 

What Happened at Babel?

My wife and I spent our 15th wedding anniversary in Vienna.  She had been a missionary there when I first met her, so we thought it would be fun to visit again.  Although we both speak a little German, I walked into the airport conscious of being in a place where I didn’t really understand the language.

Language is such an essential part of our lives, it’s easy to take it for granted.  Remove our ability to communicate, and our lives almost stop.  Imagine getting an unexpected text in a foreign language, or an email, or picking up the phone and hearing words you don’t understand.  It could be unsettling.

This must have been the feeling of the people at the tower of Babel.  They were suddenly unable to talk to people they had communicated with a day before.  The Bible is vague as to how this confusion took place, but judging from the different language groups that appear in the historical record, it seems to have happened in groups of people.

Curiously, though, ancient languages are very complex.  Modern languages are actually less complex than ancient languages, which had more tenses, moods, and cases.  Linguistically, languages seem to have devolved.   

They also seem to have multiplied into various families.  Even though English is related to French and German, we don’t understand each other.  Confusion is still the order of the day when multiple languages come together without translation.

That is what makes Acts 2 so interesting.  All these people groups had converged on Jerusalem for the feast of Pentecost, but when Peter and the apostles stood up to speak, each group heard the gospel in its own language.  This was the reversal of Babel. 

With the start of Christ’s Kingdom, the gospel was made universally understandable.  It was intended to draw all groups of people into it.  And even though Christians may continue to speak different languages, there is a curious ability to understand those who worship the same Lord.

I found this out when I once visited Amsterdam.  We had an international Bible study where six of us represented five different continents.  Although we didn’t understand each other, we felt a kindred spirit that transcended language.  

I think it was the spiritual language of the love of God.  

Reflection:

Have you ever experienced the warmth that comes when meeting Christians from foreign countries?