Monday after the Transfiguration of our Lord
Posted on January 22, 2024 by under
Scripture: Genesis 11:1-9 (NKJV)
11:1 Now the whole earth had one language and one speech. 2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there. 3 Then they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar. 4 And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”
5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. 6 And the Lord said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from 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 all the earth, and they ceased building the city. 9 Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.
Devotion
Divisions can hinder the growth of sin. “And the LORD said, ‘Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them.’” Man engages in self-idolatry when he tries to force his notions of peace, unity, and paradise upon our current world. Such utopian efforts bring misery and disaster. The divisions of man, it could be argued, fulfill God’s creative desire for a plurality of nations, united in Christ, by maintaining their separate existence.
Race is not an evil to be overcome, but part of the way God created this world. So, the scattering of Genesis 11 is at least as much a positive fulfilling of God’s creation and a protection for man as it is a punishment for sinful pride. The coming of the Holy Ghost in Acts 2 certainly has a connection to this passage in Genesis. In Acts, the hearing of the Gospel in the many languages of the nations points to ultimate unity of all people in the Body of Christ, but it does not, in pointing to that spiritual unity, bring the various nations to an end. All believers find their eternal dwelling in heaven, even as they have their earthly dwellings among their own tribes.
Collect: O God, Who in the glorious Transfiguration of Thine Only-begotten Son, hast confirmed the mysteries of the faith by the testimony of the fathers, and Who, in the voice that came from the bright cloud, didst in a wonderful manner foreshow the adoption of sons: Mercifully vouchsafe to make us coheirs with the King of His glory, and bring us to the enjoyment of the same; through the same Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
