Babel With Better Tools
“And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.”Genesis 11:4 (KJV)
After the flood, people gathered on a plain and made a plan. “Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name.” The goal wasn’t only a building. It was a name.
We still build towers. We just have better tools now. Faster output, bigger numbers, a brand that reaches higher every year. And it is easy to slip into the same motive: let us make us a name.
God’s response at Babel is sobering. “So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.” A tower built for our own name doesn’t last, however tall it gets.
Building isn’t the problem. Psalm 127 says, “Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it.” The question is whose name is on it. Work hard this month. Just check whose name you’re building.
Read it yourself
Read Genesis 11:1–9 and then Genesis 12:1–2. Compare who makes a name great in each passage.
Is there a part of your work that is really about making a name for yourself?
Lord, I don’t want to build a tower to my own name. Build my work, and let it point to you. Amen.