Happy New Year to all! Wishing you a great one! I too am excited to embark on this resolution with you of reading through the Bible in a year. New beginnings are great!
In today's reading: the great flood is already in the past and mankind is back and running; it's growing and it's developing. It's building cities. One such city seemed to have caught God's attention: people were building the great city of Babel with the purpose of "making a name for themselves" and not being “scattered over the face of the whole world," which I understood as their desire to become very powerful (Gen 11:3,4) Building a city was not the issue for God, but their motivation for it. God worried about their pride. He said: “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will impossible for them.” (Gen 11:5-7) So God confused their language and scattered them away. This doesn't mean that God was worried of the people’s power growing stronger than His - this is simply not possible. But it means that God is fully aware of the God-given abilities of humans and that they can use those abilities with pride and for doing evil. He also knows we can learn to rely on ourselves alone and ignore a relationship with Him. Who knows how far the people of the Babel would have gone if He hadn't intervened? God protected them from their own self-destructive purpose.
Next, the writer of Genesis gives details of Noah's descendants and the first nations which formed. We can see that the writer’s intention was to present this as a historical account. He begins with the words: "this is the account of". It preserved the history between God and the first families, clans, nations. We too love to create our family trees today- there are even software out there you can buy which help you map out your family tree. In Genesis, we are basically reading the roots of our family tree. Does this give you a sense of belonging and history?
Further however, as pointed in the comments in this chapter, Genesis begins to focus specifically on the descendants leading to the birth of the Hebrew nation, which will be the focus of our readings ahead. The comments said that it is through the Hebrew nation "God will ultimately speak to the whole world." I would have liked that the Bible was even longer than it is and that it included detailed history of the migration of every tribe, the formation of every nation and race, but this doesn’t seem to have been God's purpose. The Bible is His revelation to us of who He is, which continues to be told through the family of Abram.
- Does God interfere with your own plans? How does that make you feel?
- What is your personal history with God? (He has our personal stories written too, on His heart)
Enjoy the start of this year and of our mission of reading and sharing together God's word. Have a great week!
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