Living in Babel

Perhaps one of the most significant ingredients in a healthy and productive society, a happy family, or a peaceful community is a shared language. This shared language necessarily includes shared definitions about the world we live in. Where a common language no longer exists that communities soon breaks down.

Adam’s relationship with god broke down when he agreed to redefine truth, “You shall not surely die” (Genesis 3:4). Cains relationship with both God and Abel broke down over a disagreement about what constitutes true and acceptable worship ( Genesis 4:5).

But perhaps the clearest example was the incident surrounding the tower of Babel in Genesis 11.

Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. (Genesis 11:1-2)

With the devastation of the flood behind them people began to multiply. They also started heading east (never a good sign cf. Genesis 3:24, 4:16,  13:10-11).

In an effort to maintain community, the people decided to build a tower that reached the heavens ( Genesis 11:4).

Leaving aside the very interesting point that they considered communion between Heaven and Earth necessary to maintain community, God’s response to man’s attempt to bridge the distance was to fracture community. Which He did by confusing their language or, more literally, their ‘lip’ (a word often used in scripture to denote worship. cf. Psalm 16:4. It’s also interesting to note that it’s not until after this event that the introduction of pagan worship and the worship of created gods enters the scene).

All of this serves as a valuable backdrop to what’s going on in our own society today.

The fractures in our society run deep and in every direction. Behind those fractures lies the fact that we no longer speak the same language. And the reason we no longer speak the same language is that our ‘lips’ no longer worship the same God.

It’s hard to trace the roots of our current confusion without winding up in Genesis, but for our purposes I notice that each generation seems to have at least one significant marker. A point at which things began to unravel quickly.

In the 60s we began to redefine morality and wound up with the sexual revolution. By the 70s we had redefined life and wound up with abortion (in part, no doubt, due to the consequences of our promiscuity).

Fast forward to today and it’s hard to find two people who can agree on a definition for love, justice, morality, marriage, male, female, man, woman, cats, dogs and unicorns.

He’s a thought experiment for Christian homes. What kind of conversation would you all have if you sat down around your dinner table and worked your way through that list of words above?

Our words reveal who we are. From the overflow of the mouth the heart speaks (Matthew 12:34). As a result of our rebellions attempts to redefine the world with our words, our communities are no longer coherent, no longer built upon a stable foundation of the words which created and sustain our world (John 1:1-3). Each has gone his own way like some real-world “Choose your own Adventure” novel. Nations, families and communities thus continue to fracture into smaller and smaller interest groups based on their ever-narrowing vocabulary of words and definitions.

Some will look at the state of affairs and conclude that God will surely judge our outrageous confusion and disharmony. But, based on the events in Genesis 11 and the tower of Babel, we are not waiting for judgement. This fracturing of society through a confused language, is the judgement. The chaos we now have, and the chaos to come, is the judgement.

Throughout history, one of the consistent marks of an empire in a state of collapse is the confusion over language. A confusion over words and their definitions. And so Pilate, ” what is truth?” (John 18:38).

Also, throughout history, the remedy has always been the same. That is, a common agreement to live in submission and worship to the same word. To all have the same “lip”.

We see this taking shape early on in the book of Acts between people of varying communities who came together in repentance and faith through the gospel (Acts 2:42-47).

And when factions and fractures did begin to appear in the church the solution was always the same.

Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgement. (1 Corinthians 1:10)

We live in a world that is made and sustained by words. The words of Christ, who is the Word of God and whoever loaned is able to bring harmony between heaven and earth. And since, as we learn from the tower of Babel, we cannot create our own world, we either submit to the words through which God defines the world He has made – the world we live in – or else we fracture – big time.

This fact is not only seen in the world at large, but in the continuing fractures and factions that have multiplied throughout the church. Our remedy is not a list of new definitions but a return to the old paths. A humble confession that we have wandered off with our words and need to return to the Word of God, which alone brings life.

If we are going to suffer for our words, it would be better to suffer for saying what is true, then for saying what is false.