“Every generation builds its own towers,” writes psychotherapist Naomi H. Rosenblatt, and she is right. Whether these are actual skyscrapers (the Sears Tower and Tribune Tower in Chicago, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Trump Tower in New York City), or megacorporations that circle the globe, the idea is the same: “We will make a name for ourselves.” God’s people can’t escape being in the world, because it’s in the world that we have our ministry; but we must avoid being of the world. We’re not here to build the arrogant towers of men; we’re here to help build the church of Jesus Christ.
What humanity can’t achieve by means of its “proud towers,” Jesus Christ has achieved by dying on a humiliating cross. All who trust Jesus Christ are one in Him (Gal. 3:27) and will share heaven together, regardless of race, nation, language, or tribe (Rev. 7:9). While the world system is outwardly producing uniformity, inwardly it’s tearing things apart. What social scientists are now calling “technopoly” is controlling people’s lives.
But the Holy Spirit is using the church as an agent of reconciliation to bring things together in Jesus Christ (Eph. 1:10; 2 Cor. 5:14–21). In one sense, Pentecost was a reversal of Babel, for the people present in Jerusalem at Pentecost heard the praises of God in their own languages (Acts 2:1–12). The day will come when people from every tribe and nation will worship Jesus Christ (Rev. 15:4) and the judgment of Babel will be done away (Zeph. 3:9).
Each person must make a choice. Will we identify with Babylon or Jerusalem?
-Warren Wiersbe
Genesis 11:1–9 (MEV)
1 Now the whole earth had one language and the same words.
2 As the people journeyed from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.
3 They said to each other, “Let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone and tar for mortar.
4 Then they said, “Come, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top will reach to heaven, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”
5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the sons of men built.
6 The Lord said, “The people are one and they have one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do; now nothing that they propose to do will be impossible for them.
7 Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.”
8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they stopped building the city.
9 Therefore the name of it was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth. From there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.