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Have you ever wanted to learn a foreign language? To be able to travel the world and speak to someone, or even just talk to your neighbor in their native language, is a tough goal to have. Languages aren't easy to learn, but it wasn't always this way. Did you know there was a time that everyone on the planet spoke the same language?
Now, I'm not talking about cavemen days when everything was in grunts and sign language. I mean that there was a time in history when there was one language that everyone in the world knew. It was the only language. How easy would it have been to travel and communicate with anyone? It would be incredible!
The book of Genesis describes such a time when there was only one language. All people worked together and spoke together. For what is estimated to be roughly a thousand years, there was only one language.
We read this in Genesis 11:1 which says, "Now the whole earth had one language and the same words." How amazing would this have been to experience? No barriers in communication, no mistranslation, just clear speech for all!
But then we read that the people came together to build a tower; not just any tower -- the biggest tower in the world at that time. Speaking the same language, it was easy to communicate and make plans. The problem was that this tower was the antithesis of God's command.
See, after Noah's Ark and the great flood, God gave a command to His people, telling them to "be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth." Noah's descendants instead wanted to stay in one little corner of the world. They disobeyed God and instead of roaming out and filling the earth, they built a tower so that their names would be remembered for being the great ones who built a tower as high as the heavens.
Because they disobeyed God, we now have so many different languages. Because they could all communicate together without hinderance, God knew that they could accomplish many things; not just good things according to God's plan, but evil things meant to go against God.
So, God mixed up their speech so that they could not understand one another in order to rebel against His commands. When God created the earth and everything in it, He made it to be good. After each thing that He created, He looked and saw that it was good. But this goodness did not last, for sin soon entered the world, disobedience and rejection of God's rule. This sin created a separation between God and man; a separation we still experience today.
There is much brokenness in our world due to sin that exists. But there is hope for goodness once again, and that hope is in Jesus, the sinless Son of God who came to this earth to pay the penalty for our sin: death. Jesus died to pay the price for our disobedience so that we may have eternal life and be restored to God's goodness once again.
Those who built the Tower of Babel used the goodness of God for their own evil purpose. Now to be clear, building a great tower is not itself evil, but to build a tower with pride as the motivation -- saying we are better than God -- that is evil and sinful. God has given a great many gifts that are good; remember, He made the whole world and saw that it was good.
We should use those good gifts for the glory of God and not our own glory. Don't lift yourself up, but lift God up instead. So, the next time you sit down to learn a foreign language, you can thank the people nearly four thousand years ago who decided to rebel against God.
And let it be a reminder, that there are a great many good gifts in this world that are to be used in a manner that is glorifying to God. Your life is one of those good gifts, don't waste it on evil purposes, but instead look to Jesus who has come to make all things new so that we may enjoy the goodness of God on earth.
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Finding Faith is written by area pastors. This week's column comes from Robbie Mays, Campus Ministry Intern at Big Woods Bible Church, Lock Haven.