Bible Reading for January 3 – Genesis 8-11

The flood changed a lot of things. After Noah left the ark, mankind no longer has the same kind of control over the animals – now they are afraid of us (9:2). Man’s diet changed, no longer being exclusively plant-based (9:3). And people’s lifespans have shrunk to the level we consider normal today (11:10-26).

But one thing has remained the same – sin, the innate desire to pull away from God and to glorify the self. The flood could wash away the outer effects of man’s sin, but couldn’t penetrate the hardness of all our hearts (8:21). As a result, Noah surrendered to drunkenness, and Canaan despised his father for his weakness (8:20-22). The cycle of sin began anew.

And it quickly reached a new pinnacle of pride. In today’s passage, the people of the world decided to glorify themselves, to make a name for themselves (11:4). Instead of obeying God’s command to fill up the whole world with people (9:7), they decided to remain in one city (11:4). And as a visual expression of this pride, they began to build a mountain for themselves in the middle of a plain.

We may not try to glorify ourselves with tall brick buildings anymore, but don’t we still take pride in our engineering? We have built bridges across Lake Pontchartrain, and skyscrapers like the World Trade Center. We have launched ourselves into space, landing on the moon, and sending satellites to the farthest corners of the solar system. We’ve developed computers powerful enough to beat the world’s masters at chess, and connected enough to allow people all over the world to read these words as soon as they are posted online.

But unless we turn again to God, submitting our wills, our energy and our intelligence to His service, all these things will disappear. After all, in Abraham’s time the Egyptians and the Hittites competed for control of the Middle East, but their empires have vanished, and their languages are spoken no more. The Roman Empire once commanded all of Europe, but all that is left of it is ruins. Europe once dominated the whole earth, but tore itself apart in unimaginable carnage between 1914 and 1945. And the divisions within mankind, enshrined in the many languages given birth in today’s passage, will continue to destroy us until we surrender to the Prince of Peace and live by His law of love.

No, the waters of the flood couldn’t wash away human sin. But the blood of Christ can. Let us give ourselves to Him – and to one another – before it’s too late.

Genesis 11:1-9 (NASB)

Now the whole earth used the same language and the same words.
2 And it came about as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.
3 And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.” And they used brick for stone, and they used tar for mortar.
4 And they said, “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name; lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”
5 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.
6 And the LORD said, “Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them.
7 “Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.”
8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth; and they stopped building the city.
9 Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of the whole earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth.